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THE OPEN ROAD 



Privately printed by the author, 
Poughkeepsie, New York 






iC)bA<S 



Copyright, 1910, by 
H. Rea "Woodman 



Printed in August, 1910 

The A. V. Haight Company 

Poughkeepsie, New York 



©ci.a;^?i?60 



>• 



As in my childhood, the chief est of my pleasures 
was the use of "Mamma's red poetry books," sacred 
volumes brought in a prairie schooner to the Kansas 
home "from back East," so now, in my womanhood, 
it is my dearest pleasure to bring this book to her — 
my pleasure, my privilege, my blessing. To you, my 
mother, these outcasts you have loved, housed and 
safe at last! 



It is with pleasure that I acknowledge the courtesy 
of The New York Times in permitting me to include 
in this volume some nineteen poems The Times has 
printed. 



CONTENTS 



The Open Road 1 

I Looked on the Toilers 4 

If I Were a Noble Tree 5 

*'0h, Nothin'!" 7 

The Ultimate Consumer 8 

Her Sacred Book 10 

Not by Bread Alone 11 

The Anti-Suffragist 14 

The Desert Grave 16 

On the Hudson 17 

A Chalice Over-Brimming 19 

"A Word to the Wise" 21 

Forspent with Woe 23 

We Are the Myriad Women 24 

A Very Special Day 26 

The Precisian 27 

I Have Prated of Love 29 

Failure 30 

On Receiving a Catalogue 31 

An Honest Pirate 32 

A Denial 35 

The White Horse 36 

Rejected of Men 38 

"My Country, Tis of Thee!" 39 

The Fluffy Girl 41 

He's Coming Home 42 

"Confusion Worse Confounded" .... 44 

An International Episode 45 

On Meeting a Poet 46 

A Summer Night 48 



The Beggar Woman 49 

Meanderin' 51 

June Sunshine 52 

"Only the Beautiful" 54 

In My Heart Today 56 

"Literary" 57 

To John Milton 59 

The Dawning 61 

Bourgeoned with Bloom 62 

Would that the Silver Cord Were Loosed . 64 

"Comet A, 1910" 65 

At Sunrise 67 

Whatsoever a Man Soweth 68 

Release 70 

The Great Find 71 

The Stranger Guest 73 

Main Street 74 

An Initial Error 76 

The Running Mates ........ 77 

Exhibit A 79 

"Police!!!" 81 

The Poet Heart 82 

Living Along without You 84 

The Spring War 85 

The Elms Are Stricken with Autumn ... 87 

Growth 88 

In the City Parks 89 

Love's Roses 91 

To Insurgent Number One 92 

Sanctified 94 

The Slow Age 96 

As Man to Man 98 

One Difference 99 

Yet Stands He Dumb 100 

A Blue Bird 104 

The Wearing of the Green 105 

The Woman Fate 107 

The Peace Commissioner 108 

Though Solemner I Walk 110 

The Latest Menace Ill 



The Clutch of Circumstance 113 

"Silence, Loneliness, Darkness" .... 115 

Perhaps in Other Stars 116 

"Aye, Aye, Sir!" 117 

A Dismissal 119 

Softly, Past This Closed Room 120 

The World Builders 122 

At the Concert 125 

The Old Theology 126 

"Clean, Cold Cash" 129 

As We Hurtled to Death 130 

I Lift My Low Heart Up 132 

Steadfast and Gray 133 

Eternal in the Heavens 135 

Bits of Broken Dreams 136 

Hail and Farewell 137 



THE OPEN ROAD 

'I am a mail, and nothing human is foreign to me." 

A ribbon of joy through an unbought land, 

Where buttercups grow, and a baby hand — 

The tiniest, fluttering baby hand — 

May garner gold without stint; where no Sign 

Stuns back to the heart the mad summer wine, 

The buoyant, bubbling, lawless drench 

That dreams no distinction of Mine and Thine! — 

And, further on, past the buttercups far, 

Temples and tenements, scar upon scar 

Against the antique and suffering sky, — 

Privation Hell-deep, worship Heaven-high, 

And no bridges builded for God between! 

Shops and prisons, gibbets and tombs. 

Toys and Scriptures, levers and looms, — 

Life staked and housed — the chattering Town, 

Where Fashion and Power come riding down! 

Then, country again — bird-song and dew; 

Limitless silence, limitless shine; 

Fields, meadows, masses of columbine — 

Clinging clumps of tremulous green, 

Where waxen trumpets play sweetness out! 

And trees — grave century growths, enclung about 

With whispering vines, things of Yesterday, 

Light-hearted as daisies, forgetful as May! — 

A ribbon of joy, embroidered with life, 

Stained with mortality, twisted with strife. 



Yellow with sunset, crimson with morn, 
Echoing the glee of the hunter's horn, 
The huckster's cry, the outcast's prayer — 
All the wistful human passing there! — 
Gold of man, gold of God, 
Virgin-conceived in a single sod — 
The Open Road, that my feet go by, 
Under the antique and suffering sky! 

The long Road that winds its babbling way 

From remotest Night to remotest Day; 

Lost now and then in the mists that gloom, 

Like unshed tears, the cradle, the tomb; 

Threading blear fogs of pride and shame, 

Noondays of Glory, evenings of Fame, 

Sundays of idleness, Mondays of toil — 

Pure earth fritter, earth care, earth moil! — 

Snatches of prayer; broken curses that cHng 

To the rising wrath Hke a drowning thing; 

Scraps of praises; remnants of hate; 

Masks of Democracy; baubles of State; 

Rags of scarlet, patches of white. 

Woven once in one woof for woman-dehght; 

Burnt-brown stains on the Law-paved street. 

Where Desire and Justice daily meet. 

And tears and fresh blood aU zigzag run 

To join the rivulet in the sun! 

And Vanity Fair, throned in tawdry din. 

With treble laughter and tinkling sin. 

While thread-bare Envy trundles by. 

Under the antique and suffering sky! — 

The martjT, the harlot, the soldier, the priest, 

Scurrying for first place at the pitiful Feast — 

Jostling and crowding the cluttered Road — 



The Open Road, where the winds blow free, 
And every man is a friend to me. 
And I am the friend of every man, 
An intrinsic part of the Human Plan. 

Oh the Open Road! the floundering feet 

That have mired its bitter, and tangled its sweet! 

Oh the hearts that ache when the song birds wake 

By the side of the sleeping Road! 

Oh thoughtless clouds that loiter on! 

Oh rose-leaf hills that smile at dawn! 

Oh hands that part the brambles thick. 

Oh souls that travel, puzzled and sick, — 

Oh all you creatures of the Road, 

I count your tears! I weigh your load! 

No rock of all you stumble on 

But on that edge my groans have gone 

Like homeless children in the night! 

No fruit you steal, and secret eat. 

But in my hand its purple turned 

To molten ash that burned and burned! 

No God you sought, no hope you graved. 

But there I groped, that joy I craved; 

In humanness, in lack, in woe, 

Adown the leagues, narrowed and slow. 

Hand locked in hand, with you I go! 

I bind your feet, I dry your tears, 

I share with you the ripened ears 

We gather as the sunset falls. 

And from the corn the bobwhite calls; — 

The Open Road, where the winds blow free. 

And every man is a friend to me; 

Where we stop and greet, "Hail, fellow!" and see 

The love-light leap from heart to eye 

A human moment, then hurry on by. 

Under the antique and suffering sky! 



I LOOKED ON THE TOILERS 

I looked on the forspent toilers, low bowed 

In the teeming labor-lands; 
I looked on the bitter and sodden bread 

They held in their stiffened hands; 
I looked on the God aware of these things 

While suns have burned to white cold; 
I looked on the friend who pressed bHthe on me 

A brimming cup, carven and gold; 
I looked on the toilers, I looked on the wine, 

And I struck the cup to the ground; 
"I drink no wine, by my soul that lives. 

Till wine for these be found!" 
My friend laughed aloud, God looked away, 

The wine spilled bright and free; 
"I drink no wine till the toilers drink, 

And God so strengthen me!" 

This all befell many eons ago. 

On a planet long since dead. 
When life was a harder thing in the worlds. 

And a sadder, it is said; 
But yesterday, on this new-fashioned Earth, 

So brave in the newest sky, 
I saw the same toilers, forspent and bowed. 

To the labor-lands creep by; 
Again I struck fiercely the carven cup 

To the fresh and tender ground; 
'T drink no wine, by my soul that lives, 

TiU wine for these be found!" 
Again right merrily rang my friend's laugh, 

The wine spilled rich and free; 
'T drink no wine till the toilers drink. 

And God so strengthen me!" 



IF I WERE A NOBLE TREE 

If I were a noble tree, 
A century old, and in shine and cold 
Had breasted, erect, what life brought to me; 

If I had seen 
The vital marvel of blue and green; 
The mortal marvel of brov^n and gray, 
As the seasons breathed their lives away, 

A century old, a century told; 
If I had thought my thoughts out in heaven. 
Chastened by the storms, thunder-driven 
To the thought's sheer soul, its spirit found, 
Stripped of the layers of flesh all round; — ■ 
If I had thought my thoughts out in heaven. 
Face to face with the candid sky, 
Only the clouds and the lark and I, 
Or the homing wild geese veering high, 

A century old, a century told; — 

If I were a noble tree. 
And they fastened a telephone wire on me. 
For silly women to talk of their clothes. 
And silly girls to talk of their beaux; — 
Chewing gum, wines, cigars and laces, 
Motor cars, politics, dinners and races; — 
The human clatter of loss and gain. 
Of worthless pleasure and empty pain; 
The stocks, the markets, prices and cost. 
The Derby gained, the pennant lost, — 

If I were a noble tree 
And they fastened a telephone wire on me, 
I wonder would my heart not broken be ? 



If I were a noble tree, 
I should hold my manward service, Beauty; — 
Hold it enough that my glory of green. 
With the smooth, brown, arching limbs between, 
DeKght man's eye and lift his heart; 
I should hold Beauty my sufficient part 
Of world-service. But if, along 
The taut steel threads hushed whispers throng 
At midnight — a strained, startled cry 
That Death be coaxed to go on by; — 
If the doctor came quicker because my pride 
Had been pierced by the cruel nails in my side; 
If Death, for a time, repented Him, 
And from the still chamber stole, vast and dim 
Why — why then my heart might reconciled be 
To the telephone wires they'd fastened on me. 

If I were an elm tree a century old, 
A century old, a century told. 
My life-roots stretching down, down, down 
Into the earth, my breast full bare 
To the riotous passions of sky and air; 
Garnering wisdom with length of years 
Too young for mirth, too old for tears; 
Glad creature of rain and sun and sod. 
Knowing no "sin," and needing no "God;" 
My being replete in self-revealed Law, 
Held erect by no Hope, bowed by no Awe — 

My breast full bare 
To the riotous passions of sky and air. 
They might nail their telephone wdres free 
In the flesh of my side, for my mind would be 
Unchained, unscarred, and my mind is Me. 



"OH, NOTHIN'!" 

11 you've nothin' to say, why, say it, 

Say it quick and have done; 
There are words, words lying loose about. 

And day is from sun to sun! 

If you've nothin' to do, why, do it. 

Do it and clear the track; 
There are wide roads leading everywhere. 

And life has no turning back! 

If you've nothin' to hope, why, hope it, 

Hope it and shrug and sigh; 
The light glows red on a thousand hills, 

And the great gold worlds are nigh! 

If you don't believe nothin', why, believe it, 
Believe it deep and keep mum; 

Each heart aches with a God of its own. 
And has its own Heaven to come! 



If you don't lift nothin', why, lift it. 
Shirk all and growl the same; 

There are millions of hearts ready to help. 
And you cannot Queer the Game! 



THE ULTIMATE CONSUMER 

Trinkets and knick-knacks and gauds, flimsy gay, 
Twined with mock flowers in ample array — 
Trifles cheap and tinsel, — the garish mart 
Where Poverty walks with an aching heart; 
And gazing there, at the trumpery grand, 
A small boy schemes what his wealth can command, 
Counts his moist treasure in furtive side-haste, 
Then shears down his wishes with woeful waste: 
With pennies that look like pure gold, he buys. 
And his credit shines in his glowing eyes, — 
An Ultimate Consumer. 

Gutters choked with filth, windows blind with dust; 
Rows of haggard clothing, limp, lank, and rust; 
Life avid and staring, — the shanty street 
Where poor men chaffer and haggle and meet; 
And a man ponders there, on which to be: 
Fed behind iron bars, or hungry and free; 
A couchant fear in his thin hovel soul, 
He casts the die for the warm prison hole; 
With nor gold nor credit, he steals and eats, 
Crazed with the smell of the world's ribald sweets, — 
An Ultimate Consumer. 

Aisles of rich carpet, walled high with bright things 
That shimmer like sun on glad-mounting wings — 
Baubles frail and lovely, — the perfumed mart 
Where Wealth walks ever with satisfied heart; 
And timid and frightened, a woman there 
Broods over fine laces she can not share, — 
Pats them and smooths them, and fancies just how 
The filmly mass would frame her baby's brow; 



No gold, no credit; she ekes out her love 
With hope that the saints whisper God above, — 
An Ultimate Consumer, 

Gleaming pavements marged with marble and stone; 
Carved crystals and bronzes a King might own; — 
Life brilliant, seductive, — the columned street 
Where rich men barter and fribble and greet; 
And a man scans there the far yellow field 
That must pour at his feet its molten yield — 
Hucksters gaily in the unleaven bread 
That thickest grows o'er the laboring dead; 
With gold and credit, he squanders and spends, — 
Spins the primrose roadway with primrose friends, — 
An Ultimate Consumer. 

And soft in the ways of plenty and gain. 
And loud in the alleys of dearth and pain. 
Ne'er asking the price, ne'er picking the best, 
A joyless Shopper on a joyless quest, 
Paces careless Death, the Rialto Lord, 
And invites them all to Kis lavish board! 
'Rich man, poor man, beggar man," — all, all, all. 
Like shot birds they drop at His jocund call! 
Without gold or credit, he buys and feeds, 
Bloat with the richness of other men's greeds, — 
The Ultimate Consumer. 



HER SACRED BOOK 

What though to me the God-meaning 

Be gone from these honored pages; 
\Miat though for me no Christ-voice calls 

Adown the deepening ages; 
Though with repression stern I watch 

The world-Hke stars, entrancing fair — 
Refuse to hold my hope a proof 

That all our happy dead dwell there; 
Because this Book was dear to you, 

My Sister, passed so long ago, 
Its dim arcane the lovely God 

That grave-eyed, silent children know, 
Sacred be it to me, Dear Heart, 

Consecrate to our childhood days, 
When as the violets God sprang 

In the low-wooded Lakeside ways. 

With your hand clasped in mine. Sister, 

I would not be afraid to go 
Quite close to God — the lovely God 

That grave-eyed, silent children know; 
I would not be afraid to kneel, 

For all of my scorn and my pride. 
If your eyes shown faithful on me. 

And you did not 'part from my side; 
And if God turned to you, and smiled, 

And you smiled back, with gentle nod, 
Both of you thus accepting me — 

Me, passing 'neath my own sin's rod . . . 
Dear Heart, Dear Heart, the hopes that urge. 

The unspeakable memories that glow, 
As I turn the leaves of the Sacred Book 

Wherein you found God years ago! 10 



NOT BY BREAD ALONE 

The heart of the people was heavy with woe, 

But no man named the cause or pain; 
Joyless, they battled with the soldier corn. 

Joyless, they cut the bending grain; 
Joyless, they watched the violet mists 

Veil soft the margined hills they knew — 
Sat silent and patient and labor-bowed 

The twilight rest-hour through; 
In the humble houses the women folk 

Sang only when a child's voice plead, 
And in the bright, brief knitting afternoons 

No lowest, gravest word was said; 
In all the glowing summer land there seemed 

No single heart that found life good — 
No heart that loitered, beholding God plain« 

In the ways of the singing wood. 

From His throne in the fartherest heaven. 

Where the tall white lilies stand, 
God looked down on the people sorrowing 

In the midst of a summer land; 
"What ails my people?" He murmured, at length. 

His loving eyes clouded with pain; 
"I have yielded them bountiful harvests, 

I have sent them sunshine and rain; 
I have clothed them their mountains with glory, 

And high is the mind of their King, 
Yet never they lift their eyes to the hills, 

And their hearts go sorrowing." 
Long, long God studied the people He loved, 

With patience no mortal can know, 
And the happy angels talked in whispers 
11 Where the tall white lilies grow. 



After a long while God lifted His head, 

His face with confidence sweet, 
And beckoned His favorite messenger. 

Supple and lithe and straight and fleet; 
*My people you see there are blind with toil; 

All dumb and drear they sow and reap, 
The day's gold span but a stolid progress 

From food to toil, from toil to sleep; 
Their saddened spirits no longer discern 

The beauty I made for their rest. 
So bear to my broken toilers today 

Of my gifts the richest and best; 
Take them now the Revealer of Beauty 

To greaten their minds to life's whole — 
To show them the joys in the hidden ways, 

The Redeemer, The Poet Soul." 

In the humblest home a baby was born 

At the close of that summer day, 
And grew to a manhood earnest and firm. 

For Want walked him the way; 
He toiled with his fellows in every field, 

He felt their hearts against his own; 
The hours of sun he carried their woes, 

The hours of star he dreamed alone; 
And when the sheer anguish of sun and star 

Broke in passion cries from his heart. 
His fellow-toilers crowned him with wheat. 

And pondered his sayings, apart; 
They guessed not the power he wrought in them, 

Nor the deeps in the words he said, 

But they sorrowed as men, and crowned him with 

wheat. 

When their poet-toiler lay dead. 

12 



From His throne in the fartherest heaven. 

Where the tall white lilies stand, 
God listened the harvest singing that rose 

From the midst of a summer land; 
"My Poet has taught them," He murmured, at length, 

His beautiful face all aglow; 
"Purest gold is the grain they reap today. 

In the corn the red poppies grow; 
And ever they look to the distant hills, 

Their lifted hearts gentle with pain — 
By these singing toilers, my Poet, you prove 

That I trusted you not in vain." 
Long, long God listened the people He loved. 

With comfort no mortal can know, 
And the merriest angels tuned their harps 

And sang with the reapers below. 



13 



THE ANTI-SUFFRAGIST 

Over the graves of worn women asleep, — 
Sunken graves, where pale lissome creatures seep 

Like sluggish wine through the riot roses; — 
The unloved tombs of the women who wrought 
In treadmills of toil, uncheered and untaught — 
Knitted the world-fabric close with the pain 
That accrued from Eden's pitiful gain; — 
Over the graves of tired women at rest. 
Pillowed on Time's improvident breast. 
Madam trips lightly, in battle array. 
Signing the birthright of centuries away! 

And they trusted her so, they trusted her so. 
These wan-eyed women, the ages ago! 

Dreamed of her — saw her brave armour of gold 
Watched the sun pick out the helmets, and gleam 
With even splendor on ranks without seam! — 
Beseeched her to fashion roadways of white, 
Where their daughters could walk the foulest night; 
Where ivory temples might stand undefiled. 
And Law stretch one hand to the woman-child. 
Ah God, the far visions that helped them bear 
The slow slavery ages, darkened and spare! 

How have you answered these women, Oh you 
Who hear not the travail that moans low through 

The sunken sods, unphysicianed and meek? 
Are you the Messiah, you The God-Sent 
To rive the rock where the powers are pent? 



14 



How have you answered, Oh you who would turn 
The torture-wheel backward, — revert the Urn 
Their trembhng faith over-brimmed? Oh the shame 
Of your careless feet on their humble fame! 
Remanded, Oh Madam, back to God's School 
Oh Humanhood, where He releavens the fool! 



15 



THE DESERT GRAVE 



Five weeks, as calendars are made. 
The thing was dying; 

Now, see it, on the bleak soul-sands. 
Dismembered lying. 

The wind-whipped sands will fret its bones, 
The jackal nose them. 

And tediously to West will crawl 
The desert's hem. 

Here the lone sun will wreck his strength 
In blanching beams unseen. 

But in my thought this desert grave 
Will not lack for green. 



16 



ON THE HUDSON 

We were a pleasure steamer, 

Tricked out in silver and white; 
We rode the blue as a swan at ease, 

A part of the glad sunlight; 
Ripply flags streamed from our masts. 

The music crept soft and low — 
Mists of memory from the far land 

Only our dreaming can know; 
We saluted our kind on the river 

With whistle and gallant ado. 
For we were a pleasure steamer. 

And they were pleasuring, too; 
On either shore the billowy hills 

Rose breast on breast, round and fair, 
And murmurous kisses laved the face 

Of the bank rocks, stern and bare. 

As we fled fast the foamy road 

Our triumph left bright on the wave. 
We met a laboring little tug 

With face business-set and grave. 
Dragging a meek flotilla of scows — 

Dingy boats in galley array. 
Loaded deep with corded wood and coal, 

And over them all the gold light lay; 
The black ropes strained, the slavelike boats 

Crawled on, silent aliens to mirth. 
With that passionless patience of toil, 

Ageless as the sin-stained earth; 



17 



We said not a word, we pleasure folk. 
Our whistles shrilled no cheer, 

All dumb we watched gray labor pass, 
Keen-browed, purposeful and drear. 

You true little tug, you stanch little tug. 

Breasting careful the valiant tide, 
At least one hand on the pleasure craft 

Waved you in fellowship and pride; 
For I am a working woman, 

Nor carry nor pennant nor song. 
And sometimes, on hot afternoons, 

The river seems very long; 
And heavily the thick ropes strain. 

And heavily the load comes on; 
The hills are only hills, the waves 

A force to wreck my strength upon; 
And when I meet a pleasure craft, 

A laughter-bouquet on the blue, 
I like to have some one feel, little tug, 

As I felt to-day when we met you! 



18 



A CHALICE OVER-BRIMMING 



It is an untoward, stupid thing 

To stay at home all summer, 

So wealthy folk have taken wing — 

Flown over-seas like brilliant birds! 



By shore and mountain, spring and lake. 

With dainty stir they settle down; 

But oh, my Heart, they didn't take 

The daisies and the columbine! — 

They left the clovers and the bees 

That bumble the live-long day, — 

The woodbine masses, and the trees — 

The great elm trees my sweetheart loves! 

And so I walk the summer ways 

In work and play and phantasy. 

My heart uplift with summer praise, 
A chalice over-brimming! 

Rarer than riches held to be 

In ocean caves, sapphire and dusk; 
Fairer than beauties dreamers see 

When the lotus has wrought its spell; — 

Sweeter than a silver river 

Sleeping between breasted hills, 
Are the moonlight beams that quiver 

On the trees my sweetheart loves! 



19 



Take your Europe, so human-worn, 

Beyond the Hfe-wrecking sea; 
Her pillared castles, labor-born; 

Her shafts to brute and selfish Kings; — 

And ancient Ind, gaunt — ghast — with woe, 

Hoar-gray from pain when Time was young; 

And Egypt, where the Nile drags slow 

His listless length through Death-plowed 
sands; — 

Gather the islands of the deep — 

Mere flecks of bluest dreamery! — 

Into your laps, as children keep 

Bits of broken shells for the sea's sake; — 



Reap the treasures of foreign lands, — 
Of unseen suns in unseen skies. 

You tourists, — trail them soft through yoiu* hands, 
And gloat on your ahen harvest! - 

Give me the used-to summer ways, 

The woodbine and the singing birds — 

My heart's home joy of summer praise. 

Beneath the trees my sweatheart loves! 



20 



"A WORD TO THE WISE" 

She wrote verses about stars and flowers, 

And "lonely vigils" and "lost, dim hours;" 

Her friends said they were "just awfully dear," 

But her husband, he never read 'em; — 

He said 'at he heard 'nuff 'bout 'um t* 'ome! 

Then she took to stories, and novels, too; 

Had Contracts, Publishers — all that to do; 

Some called her "brilliant," and some said "clever,' 

And swore that her books would last forever. 

But her husband, he never read 'em, — 

He said 'at he heard 'nuff 'bout 'um t* 'ome! 



He went to the office, sober and sad; 

The children went wild — the neighbors said "bad," 

She went to the clubs, and took trips abroad. 

And around them their dear friends hemmed and hawed; 

His friends shrugged, and remarked such was life; 

Her friends said. Oh, he'd such a brilliant wife! — 

Too bad she couldn't have "a career!" 

He sighed at that, and said, "Bring me a chair!" 

And Death, who chanced to be passing, heard, 

Brought him a chair — and a shroud! — at the word. 

The people flocked, eager, to see him dead; 

'His wife wrote 'A Heart Crushed,' you know," they said; 

The papers couldn't say much about him — 

His past was humble, his future was dim. 

So they relisted the names of her books. 

Wrote of her honors, her plans, and her looks; 

His fellow-clerks sent a wreath reading "Rest,'* 

And Oblivion followed, last and best. 



21 



When he came to the Gate, he stood up bold, 

Feeling a new man in the chaste blue cold; 

Saint Peter searched long through the books, then said; 

'Your record's brief. But under the head 

Of 'The Best Sellers' I find your wife's name. 

What can you say of her work? It's all the same." 

The poor man turned, and walked over to Hell; 

He'd never read 'em, — how could he tell.'* 



22 



FORSPENT WITH WOE 

Forspent with woe, I stand erect 

Before Death's bastioned Gate; 

I have no heart to question Him 
If I be soon or late; 

I only know that life for me 
Is ripe beyond this Gate. 

Night wears to dawn. Then comes a Voice 
From where Death keeps His state; 

'Depart. Your hour is not yet struck 
Upon the clock of Fate." 

Unmoved I hear, and stand erect 
Before the bastioned Gate; — 

Unmoved I hear; with level eyes 

I pierce Death's bastioned Gate; 

With level eyes I read the lie 
Writ on the face of Fate; 

With clangor that beats through the worlds 
The Churl flings wide the Gate! 



•23 



WE ARE THE MYRIAD WOMEN 



'About here live the women who have beg- 
gared Kings." 

— *'The City of the Dreadful Night." 



I. We are the myriad women 

Who pleasm-ed Kings for a day; 
We hailed them from Council and Senate 

To loiter love hours away; 
They beggared their crowns for caresses. 

Yielded half in pride, half in hate, 
And bartered for tinsel passion 

Gold from the coffers of State; 
Emperor, Khedive, and Sultan, 

Czar and Cardinal and King — 
We bound them with cobweb promises. 

But never the weight of a ring! 

(O days of roses and revel! 

nights of dread and fire! 
life of no deeper duty 

Than to flash to a King's desire!) 

From the crimson of hell now hear us. 

You Queens by the Ring and the Law, 
Hear us, the myriad women 

You passed but never saw; 
Hear us from the flames that torture 

The flesh that your lords held sweet. 
And out of our bitter groanings 

Take the truth of the thing complete: 

24 



In hell there are no kisses. 
Like hinds the great Kings hum; 

Do you, of your woman-wit, devise 
A sweeter hell to earn! 

II. We are the myriad women 

Who smiled deep into Kings' eyes; 
They pranked us with jewels and laces. 

We answered with laughter and lies; 
They followed as children bewildered 

The mazes of woman-caprice. 
Silencing war with kisses, 

And buying their passion-peace; 
Emperor, Khedive, and Sultan, 

Caesar and Emir and King — 
We bound them with cobweb promises 

But never the weight of a ring! 

(0 days of laces and languor! 

O nights of dread and ifire! 
O hfe of no deeper duty 

Than to flash to a King's desire!) 

From the crimson of hell now hear us. 

You women who work for your bread; 
Hear us, the myriad women. 

Who marted our beauty instead: 
Hear us from the flames that torture 

The flesh that great Kings held sweet. 
And out of our bitter groanings 

Take the truth of the thing complete: 
In hell there are no kisses. 

Like hinds the great Kings burn; 
Do you, of your woman-wit, devise 
25 A sweeter hell to earn! 



A VERY SPECIAL DAY 



Today I took the Printer Man 

A packet of dear worth, 
And with a silent child, I picked 

Ripe daisies from the earth; 
I found a murmuring rill of verse — 

A finger ring of rhyme. 
That circled like a hoop of pearl 

A precious memory time; 
And I did another lovely thing 

That is not written here. 
But certain brown eyes praised the deed 

With sparkling cheer on cheer. 



THE PRECISIAN 

And after all, how unhappy the poor dear man must be! 
His "Culture" isolates him quite from most of us, you see; 
He wants to be of "The Common Class,*" that I've heard him 

say; 
But what can he do? "The Herd" is headed the other way! 

His smile is a placid parting, a null you soon forget; 
No angers ever gripe him, and leave his eyelids wet; 
With tape and ruler and Standard he sidles through the world. 
An all-silk umbrella, tenderly, slenderly furled! 

His words are ghosts of the deed-words of millions long, long 

dead; 
What can these august presences in his kid-gloved head? 
They dripped with life-blood in the ways when men lived 

strong and bold; 
This amateur in living drapes them silken fold on fold. 

No flicker of lightness, swiftness, in all his "void profound;" 
No bubble of errant fancy, no burring wings' faint sound; 
No powers of divination, no leaping, God-straight, to Truth; 
His turgid mind clean-shaven of the dear human uncouth. 

It's such commonplace nonsense, the thought his fine words 

enwrap, 
That while he's talking your own mind can smuggle a little 

nap; 
And when you leave, you take a dip into the red, red slums, 
And off your pretty coating of asinine "Culture" comes! 

27 



Educated above his brains, his place too big for his size. 

He makes near-good by solemnness, as the owl makes near- 
wise. 

Balloon-headed, I'd call him, if asked for a private view; 

Heavy, pedantic, complacent — long-eared, between me and 
you! * 



28 



I HAVE PRATED OF LOVE 

I have prated of love — twined words around 

The lean, rugged growth, — a lacery fine 

That rippled in wind and glistened in shine; 

I have prated of passion, and — and found 

Its semblance sweet for an hour, enwound 

With fair words that smelled of earth; I have stood 

Exalt, at sunset, whispering God-good 

Might guide firm my love's feet on stranger ground! 

But now, I am dumb; my spirit's arcane 

A sealed void, where no stars come and go. 

No whirring worlds' wings ply the midnight space; 

In the drear of this love's measureless pain 

No word can live, — before this passion's woe 

I stand, a smitten thing, and cover my face. 



S9 



FAILURE 

Long time I watched the purple fruit 

Swing high above the orchard wall; 
Long time I stood in rain and shine; 

Saw morning rise and sunset fall; — 
Heard the World in the distant streets ; 

Guessed Fame's banners against the sky; 
Helpless, thralled, 'neath the orchard wall. 

In sun and in shower stood I. 
It swung so low, it swung so near. 

Time and again my apron wide 
I held glad stretched — it only fell 

In idle folds against my side! 
I heard the banners flap aloft. 

But dared not turn to see who won. 
For lower on the orchard wall 

The fruit enpurpled in the sun! 

Now, silent are the triumph streets, 

And short and sharp the fast years fall. 
And bright, a mass of foreign green. 

Sways slow above the orchard wall; 
I know not if the fruit abides — 

We're over-watched, my soul and I; 
We think we only dreamed we saw 

A purple globe against the sky; — 
We only dreamed it was for us. 

The perfect weight on the bending bough; 
We only dreamed that faith and hope 

Would mold its ore to crown our brow; 
We hear the triumph banners flap 

Against an unseen Glory sky. 
But habit-thralled, beneath the wall. 

We doze at peace, nay soul and I. 30 



ON RECEIVING A CATALOGUE 

What a very, very nice young man. 

So sweet and clean and tidy! 
I wonder where his Mamma is? 

His Aunt? His Nurse? His Daddy? 
I'm glad to have his photy-graph. 

And nearly life-sized, too; 
He's the biggest thing in the catalogue. 

And it's full of big things, too! 
So this is Mr. D., is it? 

The picture's labeled so; 
I wonder does he use Pear's Soap, 

And is he A Social Go? 
Like Beeman, The Chewing Gum Man, 

And Mr. Mennen, The Talcum Man, 
And Ringling Brothers, and Lydia E. Pinkham, 

Whose mugs we see at every turn, 
Who leer from every post. 

He's a very pretty young man, you see. 
Too modest and sweet, almost! 

Before I'd study from such a fake — 
Well, I'd see him in — Texas before! 

So here I return his photy-graph, 
I've life-sized portraits galore! 

He's the biggest thing in the catalogue. 
And it's full of big things, too; 

I return him in cotton, C.O.D., — 
I don't know what else to do! 



31 



AN HONEST PIRATE 

(Suggested by the picture, "Their Hopes.") 

They dreamed in the firelight's crimson, 

A mother and little son, 
As the winter day drew its curtains close. 

For its shining was all done; 
On the carpet, the toys, forgotten. 

Waited the small eager hand; ^- 
A train of cars on a shaky curve; 

Some soldiers, gaudy and grand; 
A tumbled Ark, with a blue Noah. 

Prostrate on the roof, like a rag; 
A reeling ship, a young Teddy Bear 

On a most disgraceful jag; 
At their feet, the playthings, forgotten; 

Around them, the firelight's glow — 
Around them that fair-visioned future 

That only home twilight can show; 
The mother saw a reverend man. 

In vestments of sheerest lawn — 
Her little boy, proudly grave and great. 

Proclaiming the Easter Dawn! 
But the little lad saw — Oh the visions 

We dream when our eyes are new! 
Oh the fleet, chameleon sparkle-globes 

That ply in the tireless blue! — 

The little lad saw in the twilight. 

Distinct on the darkling wall. 
The figure his man-fancy painted 

The most greatest hero of all! — 

32 



A very splendid Pirate Man, 

Swarthy and swagger and big, 
Standing, with arms defiant crossed. 

On the deck of his tossing brig; 
A Pirate Man, with wrinklely boots, — 

Ah, they are the boots for you! — 
A fierce cocked hat, a blood-red sash. 

With dirks and knives stuck through; 
In either hand, a new-primed gun, 

A dagger between his teeth. 
The dire Black Flag flapping aloft. 

The "treacherous waves" beneath! — 
A man of courage, force and fight. 

All things a man should be. 
Or if he digs gold from the earth, 

Or rakes it off the sea! 
I looked at the lad's mild, wistful face. 

At his eyes with dreaming dim; 
I thought of the crimes in the world's gold-ways. 

And my heart said low to him; — 

*Go be an honest Pirate, Boy, 

And sail "The Spanish Main;" 
Scuttle the stately merchant ships, 

And get you golden gain; 
Go be an honest Pirate, Boy; 

Wear a silken sash of red; 
Fly bold the grinning Skull and Bones, 

And knock your foes in the head! 
With pistol, dirk, and hempen rope 

Heap high your "treasure hoard;" 
The grim old world honors the man 

Who steals above the board! 



No graft, no Wheat Exchange for you, 

No coins from the orphan's bank; 
No gains so foul the Devil himself 

Excludes them from Hell as "rank;" 
No dripping drops of honey-gold 

From Labor's groaning hive; 
No pearls that once were widows' tears 

Where the monej^-sharks deep dive; 
Go be an honest Pirate, Boy, 

Heap high your "glittering hoard;" 
The gray old world honors the man 

Who steals above the board!" 



34 



A DENIAL 

If the world were just big enough for two, 
And I were one and the other were you; 
If we had all the riches, all the gold. 
Crushed to our liking earth's sweets manifold; 
If for an hour, Oh Lover not Mine, 
The glint and glimmer, the splendor and shine. 
Held us heart to heart, with the crimson 'round — 
A world well lost and a world well found, — 
Strong, keen, athrob with red blood through and through 
If the world were just big enough for two. 
And I were one and the other were you! 

The sturdy young world, balanced bold and fair 
On its joyous way through the realms of air; 
All forces in rhythm that we might see 
One perfect hour that else can not be; 
Were that hour here, Oh Lover Denied, 
We would enter its portals deified. 
Robed in samite, on a throne star-studded. 
The East adawn, flesh delights new-budded — 
The senses a-tingle with passion new — 
If the world were just big enough for two. 
And I were one and the other were — You! 



35 



THE WHITE HORSE 



"All the way the Death Steed with tolling 
hoofs shall travel." — A Drama of Exile. 



With carmine haste his nostrils flare. 

The urge of his eye is a flame, 
And his thunder roars on the riven floors 

Of skies jvithout story or name! 
Pale around him the battling breath 

Of the last-slain planet low curls — 
In the star-planted mead the wild Death Steed 

Is going the rounds of the worlds! 

Smeared with blood, the Steed's dimpled breast, 

For he fronts all the spheres in the blue; 
His resonant hoofs batter down their roofs, 

And his mortal breath streams through! 
His mane is twined with amaranth. 

And the blood flecks fall with the blooms — 
Down, down they dimmer where wee worlds glimmer 

In the arcs of their yellow glooms! 

His clatter breaks the harmonies 

Of the planets, playing in time; 
O'er the glittering strands their ashen hands 

Fumble blindly the severed rhyme; 
Their dying curses toll his steps 

Till deep bellows fiercely to deep — 
Till in a cold fright to some outcast Night 

The poor vagrant comets creep! 



Hard and dry as a desert grave 

Is the White Steed's untutored will; 
In his lambent eyes that scour the skies 

Nor mercies nor pities brood still; 
The shrieking suns do not move him, 

Nor the screams of the little stars; 
In valleys of snow where hopeless moons go, 

You can trace his path by the scars! 

Never a void he has not trod — 

He has dappled with death the skies 
That fringe the edge of the outermost ledge 

Where the daylight and darkness dies; 
The watching wastes affrighted stand. 

And a shudder runs 'tween the worlds. 
When ghast in a haze through the naked ways 

The mane of the White Horse swirls! 

And the great life- worlds of happy green — 

Oh the long and isolate years 
The questing Death Horse, with unswerving course, 

Has plashed through bright shallows of tears! — 
He ramps the dooryard of palace, 

And prison and hovel and home — 
Or early or late, at the startled gate. 

Shrills the White Horse, dripping with foam! 

Ah, when he comes for me, the Steed, 

Blithe with haste, from some foreign sky — 

When his shrilling neigh shakes my heart's warm play, 
And the stirrup invites close by. 

Then, ho! for a ride adown the deeps 
Where the giant fireflies quiver — 

Scudding prairies blue like my childhood knew, 
37 After we've forded The River! 



"REJECTED OF MEN" 



*Is that all you want?" my cousin said, 
*Just a daisy!" and turned her head, 
Exclaiming about the roses! 

'That's all," I said, and bending, caressed 
That flower held the dearest and best. 

While she exclaimed about the roses! 



Only .a field daisy, away from home. 
In a great garden where fine ladies come, 
Who exclaim about the roses! 



88 



"MY COUNTRY, 'TIS OF THEE!" 

Far- waned was the frail winter afternoon; 

Far-called the slant shafts the parting sun sent 
Through the rich windows, and o'er each small brow 

A brooding, reluctant, dim rainbow bent; — 
Purple and primrose and crimson entwined 

In halos above each meek little head — 
Tiny tangled polls of flaxen and brown, 

Bowed grave 'neath the prayer words the preacher said; 
It was Children's Service, and eagerly 

The little ones listened, and sang and sang — 
To the topmost niche of the vaulted roof 

Their candid praises all jubilant rang! 

They sang of the beautiful Friend they have 

In the Man who walked sad Judea's hills; 
Of the loving Arms that enshield them safe 

From all of life's dreadful sorrows and ills; 
They sang of that poor stranded sailor man 

Pulling for the shore in an angry sea. 
And then — ah, bravely the noble words winged! — 

Then they sang, "My Country, 'Tis of Thee!" 
Beneath their light voices, the organ tones 

Throbbed like a faithful heart, mighty to bear, 
And the mullioned shadows, with half-shut eyes, 

Harkened in silence, pregnant with prayer. 

Oh the unsullied passion of that hour! 

The valiant promise that welled, glad and grand. 
From each proud little heart, uplift with pain — 

A conquering march through a prostrate land! 



39 



Oh that clarion singing! Wave on wave 

It surged to the steps of the spirit's throne. 
And o'er the bright waters, in shade and in sun, 

Waved one only banner, august and alone! 
Oh that clarion singing! High and keen 

It pierced the far blue where the good God reigns 
With exultant clamor, down at His feet. 

It poured humanity's last-broken chains! 

ENVOY 

Never again in the gold-builded ways 

Will I be so worthy to die; 
Never again will so stainless a flag 

Flutter wide 'gainst so pure a sky! 
Would God that some altar had opened then. 

Some kind, flaming Death struck free, 
As the children sang, in the rainbowed light, 
"My Country, 'Tis of Thee!" 



40 



THE FLUFFY GIRL 

"I'm so intense!" Her listener smiled 
At the light words, lightly said; 
For she had groped in bitter tombs 
Where the lost are not the dead. 
"I'm so intense! 1 feel things so!" 
Cried the girl with the fluffy hair; 
Her listener smiled. From bitter tombs 
The risen ones have smiles to spare. 



41 



HE'S COMING HOME* 

A far black blot on the summer sky — 

A twisty bit of cloud, 
Watched by receding Kings and Popes, 

And peoples, all acrowd; — 
A funnel-shaped and tossing fleck. 

Careening light and low, — 
The swaddling clothes of a babe cyclone. 

The germ of A Mighty Blow! 

Oh for a Kansas dugout now, 

A home-jail under the ground, 
The flexile iron of the buffalo grass 

In a bullet-safe roof enwound! — 
The trustful cottonwoods standing guard. 

The baffled winds awail, 
The plushy pad of the sad coyote 

Like a tired and distant flail! 



A cyclone cellar's the only spot 

In case of A Mighty Blow, — 
A casual hump in the rolling ground. 

Where meek little cottontails go. 
No bricks fall down, no paves fly up. 

No bridges scud between. 
No terror faces scatter the gales 

In race with the rocking green! 



In honor of T. R. 

42 



I'm scared to death here in the East, — 

I don't know where to run; 
To face A Big Blow above the ground — 

For a Kansan, that's no fun! 
Beneath the awful skyscrapers, 

I stand, a Mercury, poised. 
My ears erect for the first mad swish 

Of that world-racking noise! 

The spiral cloudlet grows amain. 

With thunders accumulate, 
And a thousand breathless couriers ride 

The sightless steeds of Fate! 
Oh for a Kansas dugout now, 

A home-jail under the ground. 
The coyote baying the hidden moon, 

The baffled winds around! 



43 



'CONFUSION WORSE CONFOUNDED" 



It's squeer how things go when Ma gets sick — 
Er don't go, druther! It's sorter thick. 
An' muddled and mixed, but we're all right here. 
An' nobuddy shoves, an' we all play fair. 
But we doan seem ter git on, ez Pa says. 
When Ma is sick. 



I jes' never kin fin' my slate ner ball. 
An' Pa, he — he jes' cusses in the hall 
When he hits 'gainst things, an' yells, "Bring a lite!* 
An' the house dead sure is a holy sight, — 
When Ma is sick. 



The purridge is burned, an' the milk is stole. 
An' Pa says 'at Aunt Sue uses 'nuff coal 
Ter run a warship when she cooks the meals; 
An' the Horn Man furgits the tater peels, — 
When Ma is sick. 



It's squeer ter me how awful mixed we get. 
An' how lonesome 'tis when we set and set 
On the front porch, for we're all right here. 
An' nobuddy shoves, an' we all play fair, — 
But we jes' doan git on a tall. Pa says, 
When Ma is sick. 



44 



AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE 

When the man was ill, a German doctor 

Pondered lengthily by his bedside; 
When he finally passed, an Irishman 

Touched off the funeral with covert pride; 
An Englishman the preacher was, 

A French florist tooth-picked the flowers. 
And in the graveyard a stout old Swede 

Dug cheerily for hours and hours; 
The whole affair was international. 

Although so quietly it started. 
With America in the van, as it were; 

A native product, "The dear departed!" 



45 



ON MEETING A POET 

I was to meet a great poet; 
My proud heart danced for days before, 
And all but sank as we neared his door — 
I was going to meet a poet! 

He called me "Poetess," and smiled; 
And I smiled back, and — let him live! 
It was true praise he meant to give. 

And we must be patient with men. 

His tone was the caressing note 

Of the Male, protecting, bland, kind — 

Smug charity for the light mind 

Of "a woman that wrote fair verse." 

"Poetess," — the sign of Sex Caste, 
Not the grimed workman's careless word 
Across the happy hubbub heard. 

Where mighty engines breathe and blow! 

Why not stretch frank his hand to me 
In glad craf thood, — why lift the bar 
Of flesh that glooms so strong and far. 
And isolates the sexless soul? 

It would have meant so much to me. 
For I have fared a lonely road; 
Up silent midnight steeps, my load 

Has seemed, sometimes, too great to bear; — 

46 



Up silent steeps where voices throng. 
And visions beckon, mist and bright; 
Stark upward, upward through the night, 

A lonely road, with sharp stones set. 

It would have meant so much to me, 
For I have heard no human voice 
Across the dark commend my choice — 

To climb straight upward through the night; — 

To wrest from life the things I own — 
Pure poet passions sealed in snow 
On distant peaks, — through ruth and woe 
To follow till I hold them fast! 

He called me "Poetess." I smiled. 

Nor scorched him crisp with righteous scorn; 

I knew his sex ideals were born 

When Charlemange was King! 

ENVOY 

They call him a Poet, nor think 
Of the body his soul's penned in; 
They hear his voice clear of the din 

That Sex thunders 'round his spirit. 

My spirit knows the agonies 

Of the heights flesh can never climb; 

Must my voice drone through all drear Time 

Clogged by the rose-mesh called "Woman?" 



47 



A SUMMER NIGHT 

Out of the warm, fertile darkness, 

Where the clover blooms nod in sleep; — 
From lavender mists down-gathered 

In odors heavy and deep; — 
From the velvet-lidded silence 

Of the brooding and mystical night, 
I climb the stairs to my bookroom 

Where waits Grave ICnowledge, called Light. 

I sit alone with Grave Knowledge 

Till midnight chimes dull from the tower — 
Until the voices of men long dead 

Hold me fast in their chainless power. 
And the subtle, liquescent beauty 

Of the calm, the munificent night. 
Is lost 'neath the eyes of the Phantom, 

Grave Knowledge, whom men call Light. 

Stark mad and blind have men gone 
*Neath the eyes of that Phantom, called Light, 

But who ever turned without healing 

From the eyes of that Mystery, called Night? 



48 



THE BEGGAR WOMAN 



Comfort, give comfort, I pray you, 

I, a beggar, at the King's gate; 
Worn and gray and weary with life, 

All unfit for company of state; 
Hungry-hearted, sad and lonely, 

I would seek nepenthe and grace — 
Would ask to look from this distance. 

One moment, on the King's face. 

So dearly, so dearly I've loved him, 

The King, your master, within. 
That did he know I waited here, 

Himself would carry me in; 
Though worn and wasted and humbled, 

All unfit for company of state. 
The King would stretch his arms to me. 

A beggar at his bronze gate. 

A year back we forswore each other. 

The King, your master, and I; 
Now, all exhaust with love's long pain. 

My heart creeps near him to die; 
Bring the King out on the terrace — 

Some pretext will grant you grace! — 
That I may front the dark of death 

With the light of my King's face. 



49 



And tomorrow when the kindly King 

Oh, I know his heart of gold! — 
Sorrows that the beggar woman died 

Alone in the dark and the cold, 
Say to the King, your master. 

With no fear of dungeon or rod, 
'Oh King, the beggar woman died 

Looking steadfast on her God!" 



50 



MEANDERIN' 

As I walk through the city and ponder; 
As I muse and figger and wonder — 
Wonder at the fool things the rich men do, — 
The tremendous discomfort they go through, 
Only to be stared at and interviewed. 
Talked about, photographed, libeled and sued; — 
As I ponder woman's impossible dothes. 
As useless and crippled and idle she goes; 
Study the children brought up by the nurse, — 
Poor tads, harassed, bullied, badgered, and worse! 
Study the fit of the coachman's coat. 
And the angle his chin forms with his throat — 
I say, as I figger upon these things. 
And give my • fancy freedom and wings. 
One question quite queers me, and rouses: 
When do the people live in their houses? 
The mammoth houses, I mean, that look down 
On modester houses with high-bred frown; 
The huge piles of marble, wrought iron and stone. 
That the Very Rich build, fence in, and own; 
Unused, unscratched, unruffled, unscarred. 
Bolted and boarded, curtained and barred, 
So silent, so calm, so reserved, so dead. 
They strike your little heart sick with dread 
Lest some day something human venture there. 
And stiffle and choke in the vacant air! 

As I walk through the city and ponder — 
As I muse and figger and wonder, 
One question quite queers me, and rouses; 
When do the people live in their houses? 



51 



JUNE SUNSHINE 

Has it been an hour, a day, or a year 

Since I opened this book at page seven? 
Am I still in Poughkeepsing, U. S. A., 

Or China, or Feejee, or — Heaven? 
Out on the grass there the afternoon shadows 

Lengthen under the sun's liquid amber, 
And over that tumbledown trellis work 

Pale yellow roses loiter and clamber; 
Has it been an hour, a day, or a year 

Since I opened this book at page seven? 
Am I still in Poughkeepsing, U. S. A., 

Or China, or Feejee, or — Heaven? 

"What matter to me the heroine's troubles, 

Obdurate uncle or volatile beau. 
When on the grass there the afternoon shadows, 

Like lovers' caresses, soft come and go? 
And in and out of the pale yellow roses 

My tender thoughts linger and loiter and twine, 
Dreaming a world we two shall inhabit. 

Of roses and sunshine. Oh lover of mine! 
What matter to me the heroine's troubles. 

Obdurate uncle or volatile beau. 
When on the grass there the afternoon shadows. 

Like lovers' caresses, soft come and go? 

Let the world wag on its way as it pleases. 

Let it barter and sell and get gain; 
Cast its vast shadow athwart of the planets. 

While the worlds in the blue wax and wane; 



52 



I have my dreaming, my roses, and you. Love, 

And promises tender that Hnger and twine; 
The niche of Heaven we two shall inhabit. 

Dreaming breast to breast, Oh lover of mine! 
Let the world wag on its way as it pleases, 

Let it barter and sell and get gain; 
Cast its vast shadow athwart of the planets. 

While the worlds in the blue wax and wane! 



53 



'ONLY THE BEAUTIFUL' 



'Past all dishoaor. 
Death has left on her 
Only the beautiful." 

— "The Bridge oj Sighs 



The beautiful house of sin is darkened, 

Yet bravely it sparkled but yesternight; 
On its wide stairways lordly men brushed past 

Furtive Kings quick treading the telltale light; 
Clear laughter echoed through hall and chamber, 

Servants crowded with gifts at the gate — 
With revel and feasting the gay house rang, 

For lover or leman, or early or late; 
Now the laughter is spent, the curtains drawn — 

The joy that was in the woman is fled; 
Deserted, the clay pleads for burial — 

The voiceless cry of the burdensome dead. 



In a riot of roses and riches, 

A delicate bauble of rainbow life. 
She scattered the pearls of her womanhood. 

Nor reaped the harvest of mother and wife; 
Where are the jewels that answered her eyes. 

Or flashed to bright kinship in the wine's red? 
Nor jewels nor roses environ her now — 

The joy that was in the woman is fled. 
On this naked couch, the lovely marble 

Claims no allegiance of leman or King; 
Full content with careless sheet and candle — 

A piteous, sin-stained, deserted thing. 



54 



Around this Sheeted Silence still linger, 

Awave like crazed ghosts in the candle gloom. 
Specters of pleasures and lusts forgotten — 

The sad star-dust of her woman-bloom; 
And shadowy forms from the ends of earth. 

Her sisters in trade the world over, 
Bemock her new peace with haggard promise. 

Forlorn of child or husband or lover; 
A lonely Hell or a lonely Heaven, 

What matter which waits this desolate dead? 
Neither can be than the earth more lonely — 

The joy that was in the woman is fled. 

You beautiful stain of sorrow, God knows 

If your sin be the blackest of sins that be; 
But in this world we hold to the doctrine 

That your sin is to Hell the Master-key; 
The cruellest, bitterest shame earth breeds 

We have heaped on your head through the ages; 
With shoulders squared bold, men have sinned your sin. 

Crimsoned and stoned, you have signed for the wages; 
In death you are even a fettered thing, 

So tight has the crimson enwound you. 
But in God's sweet fields you may walk erect. 

And His tears spring to blossoms around you! 

ENVOY 

Oh you fair woman of grief and error. 

You stark dead alone in the world! 
In the name of your laughter and lusting. 

Forgive us the stones we have hurled! 
Not all of the sins be sins of your sort; 

There be lies, and curses, and such; 
And sin for sin, we have crimsoned the name 
55 Of the Lust- Woman over-much. 



IN MY HEART TODAY 

In my heart today I fashioned a crypt. 

And in it I laid to its last, last rest 

My sweetheart love for my lover. No guest 

Trailed mourning weeds. The slanting shadows slept 

Across the long road, and the stillness kept 

Its moveless guard, erect. No lilies shown 

Like hopes afar, no willows made silver moan; 

No tears fell thick, — for my tears were all wept. 

In the echoing crypt, my princely dead; 

In my life a new passion stirring low — 

Mother-love for him who dreams not the change. 

Hereafter, even tenderness instead 

Of bitter-sweet love's lawless come and go; 

Out of love, death; out of death, birth. How strange! 



56 



"LITERARY" 

She was looking for rooms, she said; 
(I heard it all, being sick in bed 
With the grip, and the door ajar 
So Mrs. B. wouldn't be far. 
In case I called), and she proceeded 
To list the things she needed, 

Being, as she said, "Literary." 

An east room, she said, for the light; 
"It's quite the best for those who write;" 
And was there a German student lamp? 
And was the room dry, — the damp 
Was so hard on books, — and the table, 
Was it steady, so she'd be able 

To write with ease, being "Literary?" 

When she had space to edge a word, 
Mrs. B. said, "I haven't heard 
What you do. You're in the Library?" 
"Law, no!" she said, "I'm literary! 
I don't have to work. I write down, you know, 
My thoughts 'bout things as they come and go. 
I've money. I'm literary.' ' 

It seems she's in a club or two — 
Real booky clubs, strenuous and blue; 
Writes Papers in which the words rattle 
Guiltless of thought as a baby's prattle; 
"Nocturnes," "Fancies," "Four-Leaf Clovers," 
And hand-embellishes the covers, 

Being, as she says, "Literary." 
57 



Some day when I have lots of time 
I am going to borrow a dime. 
And put on my very best dress, — 
(I have only one, I confess). 
And sit in the parlor, and say. 
In that nodding, ultimate way, 

"I've money. I'm literary. 



58 



TO JOHN MILTON 



"For contemplation, he, and valour formed; 
For softness, she, and sweet attractive grace; 
He for God only, she for God in hira." 

— Paradise Lost, Book IV. 



A tremendous epic, pompous and solemn, 

John Milton, that was you wrote; 
But I can not forgive the side remark, 

Which the same above I quote; 
Your style is a jewel-strewn fabric of gold, 

Fit robe for coronation, 
But your views on "The Woman Question" fill 

My soul with consternation! 

Now don't mistake me; I admire your epic, 

It's so very nice and long; 
And on religion and morals and such things, 

You always come out so strong; 
It's a marvel to me how you kept that gait, 

That tranquil, complacent stride. 
Through the sudden changes of two distinct worlds, 

And the hot of Hell beside. 

And Oh, your hero! that big shining Satan, 

With heart of untamed fire, 
Who dared to want to be God, and in Heaven 

Gave sword to his desire! 
Splendidest hero conceived by the human. 

Insurgent and Captain, too,* 
With a mind to o'er leap The Established Caste, 

And the quick, sure will to do! 

59 



Dared to want to be God! My spirit trumpets 

His spirit from height to height; 
All the noble in me leaps Tdde to courage 

The man in his mighty fight! 
Dared to ward to he God . . . whence came our "sin," 

The velvet mold of the grave. 
And in vast wake of these, the serene white Christ, 

"With hope to heal and save. 

But Adam, he's a first-class mollycoddle. 

No timber in him at all; 
Even sans Satan and Eve and the Apple, 

The man was certain to fall; 
He ducked behind the woman when trouble came. 

And talked a blue streak, I bet; 
A model of domestic evasion that 

Most men are following yet. 

Your Eve I confess I don't admire much; 

Too facile to disobey; 
When the snake popped 'round The Tree, such a woman 

Would scream and scamper away! 
But if she had to find her God in Adam, 

One couldn't ask much of her; 
As a conductor of Divine Justice he 

Was not a man to prefer. 

Don't think I don't Hke your poem, John Milton, 

Or read far into the night; 
But the side remark I have quoted above, 

I can't get over it — quite; 
You had had three wives, and you were blind. Please Sir, 

Accept this appreciation. 
Though your views on "The Woman Question" fill 

My soul with consternation! 



60 



THE DAWNING 



Easter-fresh from the tomb of all I have been, 

I walk in the crimson dawning; 
Do not touch my hands or my garments, I pray. 

For I am the King's this morning! 

The freshness of my lips — of my soul! — is his 

To kiss in the crimson morning; 
His love made possible the death, the tomb. 

To him I give The Dawning! 



61 



BOURGEONED WITH BLOOM 

Dead, the elm tree that I loved best; 

Dead, the tall old elm on the corner; 
Dead, and the dandelions at its feet 

Lift clear gold eyes of wonder! 
The stately, naked limbs branch firm 

Against the fresh azure sky — 
No cooing baby-green clothes soft 

The rich brown flesh with gurgling sigh. 



Lord and master, benign it stood. 

Head and shoulders the maples above. 
Safe sky-hung tryst for the wanton thrush, 

Safe nunnery for the grieving dove. 
And the pendulous atomy things 

That sightless pulse in hum and quiver. 
In its satin greenery lived smug 

Their little blind Forever. 



Why, its shade was a benediction; 

Its silence becalmed the heart 
Like the sunset swells of a dreaming sea. 

When stillness holds that houseless mart. 
In its undulant breast one's tenderest thoughts 

Could sink down, down in waking slumber, 
And the shattered gauds of a wasted life 

Were healed in its cradling umber. 



62 



Dead, the elm tree that I loved best — 

Dead, bourgeoned with bloom around, 
A Presence austere, silent, J nude, 

Springing from the jocund ground! 
Summer has called, but she has not waked 

The old elm tree on the corner. 
And the dandelions listen its sleep 

With clear gold eyes of wonder. 



6S 



WOULD THAT THE SIL\^R CORD WERE 
LOOSED 

Would that the silver cord were loosed, the bowl 
Broken at the well! Now no earth-worn clay 
Rests, rose-en\ironed, 'gainst its Easter Day. 
Merely — a trifle, perhaps, in life's whole, — 
Merely a friend's faith had failed us, my soul. 
Would he had died before this thing came true — 
Before he lost faith, Heart, in me and you, — 
Turned back, as we staggered, spent, to the goal! 
God, how we needed him! — looked to him, heard 
His cheers when they rang not! — dashed the blood free 
Of our eyes, bit back the iron, and pressed on! 
Unworthy, unworthy; I lay the word 
On the shrunken ground at your feet. To me 
Faith's death holds no promise of Easter Dawn. 



64 



"COMET A, 1910" 

Oh, won't it be great when we swirl through 

The fringe of that Comet's tail, 
Dodging and ducking with might and main 

The tangle of starry hail! 
And loud our decorous Earth will laugh, 

When across his private sky. 
That Vagabond of the out-lawed worlds 

Flaunts his spangled splendors by! 

He's only a Comet, a bold, mad rogue, 

And he thinks all life a jest; 
No toilers reap on his fruitless fields, 

No lilies bloom on his breast; 
No place has he in the routine march 

Of the peopled and patient worlds. 
But ever against their pride of home 

His blazoned length he hurls! 

He butts into planets and stars and suns, 

And ere they can turn around. 
He's scorched a billion or so of miles, 

And burned ten worlds to the ground! 
They can't arrest him — he isn't there; 

He never sleeps or forgets — 
Just ramps and charges and carries on. 

And sizzles and fumes and frets! 



65 



But think what he knows, — think what he has seen 

In the cryptic spaces far; 
What Deaths he has met in their journeys dim 

From fainting sun to aching star; 
And the unhoused souls of our 'parted friends, 

Perhaps he has met them, too — 
Ah, think of the riches his heart has gleaned 

In the meadows of cryptic blue! 

When he sprints by us, the gay, mad rogue. 

Vagabond of a million skies, 
I'm going to climb to the highest peak. 

And shunt him a golden prize! 
Insurgent, Rebel and Field Marshal, 

Lucifer of the Farthest Night, 
I doff my hat to The Vagabond Prince, 

Bloomin' Tramp and Cosmopolite! 



66 



AT SUNRISE 

I wake from the edgeless silence, 
The silence of fathomless sleep. 

And out beyond my casement wide 
Swells and washes a music tide — 

A rainbow babble of clear bird notes. 
Rippling from slender, unseen throats. 
At sunrise. Dearest Heart. 

I turn in my bed, and listen 
The velvet volume of sound; 

And the day's first, first thought is you. 
Born of song and crimson and dew; 

You are the world, and I belong, 
A crooning, wistful, low bird song 

At sunrise. Dearest Heart. 



67 



WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWETH 

A broken law, and the breaker must stand 

The bill himself — that's the law of the land; 

Alone the prison receives him, alone 

He bears the waste days of silence and stone — 

The waste, starless nights in a taut steel box 

Bounded by the concert click of the locks — 

The horrible concert click of the locks! — 

By himself he answers the roll for "sin" 

That most of his fathers have had share in — 

Wonders, sometimes, that the field is so wide. 

But shoulders the sheaves with a brave man's pride — 

See, the pity of the harvest! 

A broken vow, and the breaker must bend 
Before hurtling stones — that's the law's sole end; 
Alone she faces the hatred, silent 
Till the strength of each flying rock be spent — 
With unswerving eyes she follows their wake — 
The swift, keen roadways the jagged stones make — 
The terrible roadways the gray stones make! — 
By herself she walks in the bleak of "sin" 
That most of her mothers have had share in — 
Marvels, sometimes, at the sharp stubble sward, 
But over the gashes keeps valiant ward — 
See, the pity of the harvest! 

A broken toy, and the breaker must know 

The punishment mete, the home law says so; 

Alone the child suffers the wrath, wide-eyed 

Sees his tangled gaud snatched bold from his side — 

68 



A sudden dark made in the dayshine's bright — 
Just for him created a special night — 
Created a desperate, haunted night! — 
By itself his little heart pays for "sin" 
That most of his parents have had share in — 
Ponders, gravely, through the long summer days 
The Strange Thing set fast in the poppy ways — 
See, the pity of the harvest! 

We reap and we bind, and ever ahead 
Stretch the endless fields sown erst by the dead; 
Thorns, nettles and tares nodding to our blade — 
Rank growths of the sowings our fathers made! 
Down the long, long rows in the cruel sun. 
Curse for curse, blow for blow, one beside one — 
Rotted stalks, springing shoots, one beside one — 
For a million dead we reap pain and "sin". 
And the thousand ghosts of our fathers grin. 
And the Preacher preaches the Law of the Field — 
The formula of the Seed and the Yield — 
God, the pity of the harvest! 



69 



RELEASE 

Broken by the buffeting billows 

In the troughs of a passion-sea, 
How soft is the shade of the willows 

In this harbor that stretches for me! 
Silver in the luminous shallows 

In wavelets the little fish run, 
And the Hzard, on a slippery stone. 

Lolls his life of improvident sun. 

As grateful as lotus-leaved pillows 

To the head that has sickened all day. 
Is the tremulous shade of the willows. 

And the wee fishes' silent play! 
And gently the spent passion-billows 

Make music o'er some moonlit lea — 
Oh Heart, how tender this harbor 

That bares its mild bosom to me! 



Oh lissome and thrice-thriftless minnows. 

Absorbed in your shine-dappled play! 
Oh circling and stout-clasping willows. 

Gazing your own faces alway! 
Oh safe-hidden bosom, where billows, 

Nor storm- wrecks, nor passion-swells be 
Oh Heart, plead with God you may never 

Steer again for the open sea! 



70 



THE GREAT FIND 

Well so it's ended! That North Pole 

Has let itself be found at last! 
Whatever ills may come and go, 

That Heaven, that suspense is past! 
A thousand years we've waited. 

With halted breath and eyes a-pop; 
It seemed so useless to go on 

Until we knew earth had a Top. 
We sent a lot of ships and men. 

With canned goods and queer furry clothes. 
But ever they came back anon 

With hopes deferred and frost-nipped toes ; 
We thawed 'em out, and sent 'em back, 

Then waited, every mother's soul — 
Suspended business, prayers, and love. 

Till some one found that old North Pole! 

My grocery bills are overdue; 

The housemaid's given warning; 
The milkman mutters to himself 

In the blue of the early morning; 
The speed dog on the gas meter 

Has long been working over- time; 
The postman's whistle thrills me cold — 

He's ladened with rejected rhyme! 
My last year's sleeves can not be cut 

To fit the style prevailing; 
Against the tiny five-cent loaves 

My cries ring unavailing! 
Beefsteak is up, and butter's up, 

And up, up soars the price of coal. 
But surely things will take a turn 
71 Now we have found that blessed Pole! 



Now will the five-cent loaves increase. 

The ten, grow quite enormous; 
We will not burn black diamonds. 

As erst we did, to warm us; 
The workman, with full dinner pail. 

Will carol him a bhthesome lay; 
The Gas Company will not demand 

The whole of your last month's pay; 
And Congress will talk less, perhaps. 

And make some laws that we can use; 
And all things good we'll steadfast keep. 

And all things bad we'll straightway lose; 
Earth's woes shall vanish as the mist 

That rises from the sun-kissed ground; 
A thousand years' rehef is ours — 

That old North Pole is reaUy found! 

Oh, the fair comfort 'tis to know 

Precisely where the North Pole's at! — 
To sleep o' nights, and lean 'way back. 

To jest, and yawn at ease, and that; 
The people yet look hollow-eyed — 

Such waiting wrings the inmost soul! 
No decent man could merrjTnake, 

Till it was found, the real North Pole! 
To think that only yesterday 

W^e were n't sure, — we didn't know, — 
We only 'sposed it might be there, 

Tucked snug among the bears and snow; 
We prayed, and held on tight, and hoped — 

Ah, Faith, it is a mighty thing! 
It's found, it's found, that dear North Pole! 

Let all the people rise and sing! 



72 



THE STRANGER GUEST 

Today, as I sat in a new anguish-dark, 
A crying, lost, clinging, accumulate dark — 
An alien darkness that seemed to engulf 
All the correlate powers that once summed Me, 
A Sudden Shape, pale with the paleness of tombs 
Never quickened by tendrils of bloomy green, 
A Thing velvet-footed, with conqueror mien, 
Lips of candid disdaining, eyes of clear scorn, 
Made an arc of ghast light in the darkness lorn. 



*Who are you?" I cried, in amaze, to my guest, 
My ghast-circled, confident, gray-gazing Guest, 
Stranger to me, unmet in the charted skies 
My spirit has traveled since loosed in Time first; 
O'er the conqueror mien lagged a desert smile; 
Then mordant words, dead as a dead planet's moon ; 
'Your heart must be slight to forget me so soon; 
I starred with you late in a similar play; 
Madam, I am The Anguish of Yesterday!" 



7S 



MAIN STREET 

Girls and giggles, giggles and girls. 
Bangs, pompadours, frizzles and curls — 
Swift eyes glancing, alert and bright. 
Round the Open Mart of Saturday Night! 
Old men, young men, real boys and boys 
Web-footed, cigaretted, 

"Mothers' Only Joys!" 
Women with bundles and babies and cares, 
The babies in go-carts with Teddy Bears, , * 
Cross and sleepy and squealing with woe, 
Tired of staying, but don't want to go! 
Tipsy men gravely threading the maze. 
Trying vainly to relate it all 

With their lost Yesterdays! 
An Alley Belle with painted cheek. 

Looking for a lover 
Up and down Main Street, where the arclights quiver 
The long, long, long street ending in the river. 

Lightness and laughter on girlish lips, 
Or they echo the poisoned jest that slips, 
A serpent thing, now in shade, now in light, 
Through the Open Mart of Saturday Night! 
Big boys, little boys, real men and men 
Foul-hearted, passion-stricken, 

Bagging for their den! 
A hawker crying his burnished wares. 
By the side of the popcorn man, who shares 
His torchlight with him; around them a troop 
Of half-revealed children — a cherub group! 
Frail housekeepers piling their baskets wide — 



74 



Servants to the bodies of those they love, 

Woman's pitiful pride! 
A Factory Girl with waist turned low, 

Looking for a lover 
Up and down Main Street, where the arclights quiver - 
The long, long, long street ending in the river. 

Gayety ripples the spring-toned air — 
The grace of girlhood is everywhere! 
Shop doors stand free, full streams the light 
On the Open Mart of Saturday Night! 
The Hunter stalks his big game — a dove 
In the beginning, enmeshed 

In the name of Love! 
And at the corner with flag and drum 
Some Soldiers proclaim God's kingdom come! — 
Shallow-eyed women gazing in windows 
At their waxen sisters, standing in rows; 
While above the clamor, a wail between — 
"They're hanging men and women there 

For wearing of the Green!" 
A High School Girl, with sweet arms bare, 

Looking for a lover 
Up and down Main Street, where the arclights quiver ■ 
The long, long, long street ending in the river. 

ENVOY 

You mothers, who carried these girls. 

Bore them in wombs of pride. 
Do you know the men that walk to-night, 

With ribald jest, at their side — 
Up and down Main Street, where the arclights quiver ■ 
The long, long, long street ending in — the river! 
75 



AN INITIAL ERROR 



A milliard eons before Time was, 

A milliard eons e'er Space, 
God found Himself very desolate grown. 

With nobody 'round the Place; 
So He planned a little surprise for Himself, 

A change from the lonesome Night; 
He lifted His omnific eyes, and quick 

The void pulsed with beats of light; 
There were worlds and suns and comets and things 

Fanfares of ruby and gold. 
And humans and horses and seas and hills. 

His Night-worn eyes to behold. 

Then suddenly somewhere somebody died — 

Rammed head-end into a Law, 
And the blundering soul of this luckless wight 

Was the first angel God saw; 
So very pleasant He found it to have 

Somebody around the Place, 
He made Him a million or so of Laws, 

And sifted them into space; 
And now, from amongst the billions of souls 

That swarm His erst quiet Throne, 
God often longs, with great tears in His eyes, 

For one pure hour alone! 



76 



THE RUNNING MATES 



The staid black carriages have careful paced 

The long, glittering street in sad-cadenced line; 
The silver voices of far-moving bells 

Ring clarion-pure through the wan sunshine; 
Down the satin slide little scudding sleds 

Scatter shrill laughter and whoops of delight — 
Flying rose-faces in jubilant race 

With the flying lawns of scintillant white! 

With laborous wing through the heavy sky 

The wild geese their clamorous courses keep; 
Through the snow-plumed boughs of the tall cedars 

Faintest, pleadingest little bird prayers creep; 
The monotonous cry of the Old Rags Man 

Shivers thin through the deeping twilight, 
And erect in piteous alley homes 

Hungry eyes confront the on-coming night. 

Hard, hard is the hand of King Winter laid 

On the hushed pulse of the white-faced town, 
And ever the doctor's hastening sleigh 

Shadows close Death's footsteps up and down; 
And ever the frozen roses trail stark 

By the side of the door latched all too late, 
And lone in an ordered and listening room, 

A Sudden Silence holds placid state. 



77 



Ah, bitter, bitter the hand of the King, 

Bitter the ermine he flings broadcast, 
Bitter the diamonds that spill from his crown, 

And litter the way the hard King has passed! 
But merrily chorus a thousand bells, 

The joy of the children is sweet and bold, 
And proudly the horses strike music clear 

With hoofs that spurn nobly the crystal cold! 

And ever the music strikes fain across 

The Sudden Silence in the ordered room, 
And the frozen roses, through fixed tears, 

Gaze meek reproach for their beauty's doom; 
And high on the purpled and patient hills. 

With wide-ermined Death, his running mate, 
'Mid sparkle and splendor and gems untold. 

King Winter holds wanton his brilliant state. 



78 



EXHIBIT A 

I can't say her Family adores her. 

But she's trained them to Stand Around; 
To Look Up when they speak of her, 

And Salaam to the very ground; 
She's narrow and smug and callous, 

Bestuck with thin virtues, like pins, 
And calls on Heaven to witness 

The odor of Other Folks' sins; 
Her long, lithe tongue can lick the bloom 

Clean from the fairest girl-name, 
And her strident Goodness leaves but grief 

In her boasted ways of healed shame; 
But she has one Tremendous Talent — 

A Talent of which you hear tell 
When the Family put the Best Foot fore; 

She can — save the mark! — she can Spell! 



She hasn't a ray of Vision; 

Her sight is opaque as a board; 
With cubes of trim facts and figures 

Her brisk little mind is tight stored; 
When God tossed her parts together. 

The last job one Saturday night. 
He was out of Fancy and Wisdom, 

And couldn't find any Insight; 
But in a scrap-heap in the corner — 

Some odds and ends hustled pellmell. 
He found the Talent Essential, 

The Abihty to Spell! 



79 



He smiled as he seized it, thankful. 
And kneaded it in the stiff clay; 

And smiled and smiled as He kneaded. 
And kneaded and smiled away. 



And now is her Spelling the marvel, 

The Amaze of the countryside. 
The Family's Supreme Contention, 

The Exhibit A of its pride; 
Whatever goes wrong or twisty. 

Of one thing you always hear tell — 
Of how, from her childhood's hour. 

Aunt Serena Judkins could spell! 
Forgotten her thin, wirey virtues, 

Her emaciate vices and sins — 
Obscured in the hailstorm of praises 

Her "Wonderful Gift" always wins! 
No matter who's buried or married. 

Who's jailed, or who's got what to sell. 
The Exhibit A of the Family Show 

Is How Aunt Serena Can Spell! 



80 



'POLICE!!!" 



*The new Senator from Washington is a poor man." 

— The Herald, 



There's a poor man in the Senate, — 
Say what do you know about that? 
A poor man in the Senate — 

In the U. S. Senate! 
All day I have trod in a maze 
Of surprise and grief and chagrin 
To think they'd let the fellow in — 

Into the U. S. Senate! 

We've surely fallen on evil days 

If a poor man can get into the Senate — 
Into the U. S. Senate! 
"The richest body of men in the world," — 
That's the stock remark on the Sacred Floor, 
As stricken tourists gaze through the door. 
And the Guide explains and expands; 
"The richest body of men in the world," — 
And now a poor man has broken in — 
Into the U. S. Senate! 

How did it happen? Who's to blame? 

For Heaven's sake hustle him home! 
It's no place for "a poor man," 

Not nowadays, the U. S. Senate! 
Do something — anything! — somebody, quick! 
Indite John D., — get out The Big Stick! — 
Is Patriotism dead? Unfurl the flag! 
"Help! Murder!! Police!!!" 
81 



THE POET HEART 

That man a poet? Oh, yes, I admit 

He tunes high singing words to words that sing 
Again, but, somehow, when twilight grays bring 
The poets close, and they linger a bit; — 
When the heart is cleansed with the purest tears — 
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful tears, — 
Supreme of poverty, honors and years. 
The dew of the soul, when, naked, it steals 
From its prison and walks where morning heals, 
A chaste, timid creature, sore, sore afraid, 
Passive and silent, a thing prison-made. 
Half fearful of freedom, dreading the way 
Of the bold, wide-open, light-laughing day; — 



When the poets crowd the heart at twilight. 
This one your prate of is absent and dumb; 
Shakespeare, Cowper, Burns, the Brownings, they come 
Like mother steps softly healing the night; 
Or when through your spirit an anguish calls — 
A shrilling, cold tremor through Memory's halls — 
A tremor that flashes and echoes and falls — 
An anguish you conquered eons ago. 
In some bright star earth, now a round of snow 
Adrift on the outermost rim of the world. 
Your once green planet home through midnight swirled! — 
Then this poet's words avail not, nor lift 
One lightest cloud from the far shadow-rift! 



82 



The man has no tears, no love, only fire; 
He blazes his clever verse way with hate. 
Shreds of torn lives clinging his wheels of state, 
A devastation critics call "Satire." 
The sympathy born of passion and snow, 
The essence of love drenched in human woe, 
The poet's thorn-crown, the poet's God-woe, 
This brilliant verse-maker never has dreamed ; 
Nor has the man, in daily living, deemed 
Personality an inviolate force; 
He holds common all human ground, a course 
To his huntsman's sport, — no plaintive quail cry 
Arouses his kinship as he rides by! 



That man a poet? Do poets pen fast. 
In little cages, tiny, helpless things — 
A gray-green canary that sings and sings, - 
An atom squirrel the mighty forest cast 
In plentitude of life? I ask you, fair. 
Could the vibrant heart of a poet bear 
With such little prisoners his hearth to share? 
In the name of the heart of Bobbie Bums, 
The heart universal, where tenderness yearns 
As the spirit of God brooded on the deep, 
Don't call a jailor a poet! O keep 
Unstained the title that Robert Burns wore, 
A Patent of Pity for evermore! 



8S 



"LIVING ALONG WITHOUT YOU' 

'Living along without you," — 

Who dreamed it could not be done? 
Listening, I stand in the white moonhght; 

My heart greets the morning sun; 
Tiving along without you," — 

How little our power we know! 
I care for yellow roses still, 

I know where the clover blooms blow! 



'Living along without you," 

Doing my work each day. 
Oh Soul's Desire, there comes a time 

When the day is folded away — 
Folded away like a garment, 

For the child's poor play is through. 
When the sum of the whole world's grief seems this: 
"Living along without you." 



84 



THE SPRING WAR 



There's a bran-new sun in a bran-new sky; 
Clouds never used before drift slow by — 
Oh, it's fresh as a schoolboy's Sunday face. 
The old winter world in its April grace! — 
Saucy and fleet, like the gossamer things 
That tease drowsy waters with azure wings! 
Oh dainty and fetching past words to say 
Is the winter world in its Spring array! 
The flowers, the people, the birds, are out. 
Blooming and laughing and singing about; 
The birds building houses, their wee bird care 
A common burden, alike share and share; 
The men going to business, erect, alert. 
The women wrestling with wreckage of dirt; 
"Vi'lets! Fresh vi'lets!" the vendors cry, 
And over them all domes the bran-new sky! 



There's a bran-new sun in a bran-new sky; 
There are tons of ashes piled gray and high; 
The back dooryard is a mortified waste, 
A section preempted by zero haste — 
A slattern domain of rubbish and cans. 
And firm in the midst lovely woman stands. 
Towel-crowned Queen of the Empire of Dirt! 
With buckets and brushes and brooms engirt, 
'Mid suds that sizzle and mops that clank. 
She charges Dirt, horrent rank upon rank ; — 
Transfers it with system from place to place, 
A creak in her back, a frown on her face; 



85 



Deaf to the robins that cheep and call, 
BHnd to the blossoms that loose and fall; — 
"Vi'lets! Fresh vi'lets!" the vendors cry. 
And the ash-dust columns the bran-new sky! 

There's a bran-new sun m a bran-new sky. 
And free in the shine men are tramping by — 
Marching with banners and music and fun 
To grapple with equals on ground red-won; — 
Tramping to forum and Council and mart, 
Of the world's ongoing parcel and part; 
And pent in a routine of shifting dirt, 
With buckets and brushes and brooms engirt — 
The same rust weapons and warrior-gears. 
Woman fights the fight of ten thousand years ; 
A petty war, waged on unworthy foe, 
"\ATiere no banners beacon, no bugles blow. 
No starry-eyed Glory impatient waits 
With olive and bay at the shouting gates! — 
"Vi'lets! Fresh vi'lets!" the vendors cry. 
And the vaulting dust stains the bran-new sky! 



ENVOY 

Oh the bannered wars, they be hard, God knows, 
With the dead strown o'er land and sea, 

But your foe's your peer, and he's fain to die 
For the love of his ain countree! 



THE ELMS ARE STRICKEN WITH AUTUMN 

The lofty elms are stricken with autumn. 

The loosened leaves eddy and poise and fall; 

In its tender way the October day 

Opens wide every gate to Memory Hall. 

I had meant to bear the autumn with smile — 
To ignore Earth's mourning when Summer died; 

To walk this dear street you used to know, Sweet, 
With nonchalant courage and proper pride; — 

I had meant to forget our heart- sorrow — 
To dwell on the joys of love, and be brave; 

But every light leaf is a stab of grief, 

And seems to fall on a freshly-made grave. 

I dare not look down the shadow-flecked road, 
Nor watch the elm branches against the sky; 

Through a blur of tears I see our lost years 
In the gentle afternoon steal by; — 

Lightly, softly, now in shade, now in sun, 

Down the green-arching ways the dim j^ears go. 

For the ways are all Spring, my King, my King, 
And the violets bloom that you used to know! 

From the stricken elm trees strays of wan gold 

Eddy and flutter and loiter and rest; 
In the October moan I walk alone. 

And Sorrow reigns regnant in my breast. 



87 



GROWTH 

*You can not read that book,*' God said, 

And put it on the shelf. 
Then went on reigning from the skies, 

Enjoying of Himself! 



Since then I stand on tiptoe, — 
My fingers just marge the shelf, — 

And from the skies God reigns and reigns. 
Enjoying of Himself! 



Some day when I grow tall and straight, 

I'll easy reach the shelf. 
And then I'll read and read and read, 

Enjoying of myself! 



88 



IN THE CITY PARKS 

All day they stare across the summer sun. 

And yawn and twist, and doze, and yawn again; 
All day they dimly watch the World go by. 

With clutter and clamor. The Dreaming Men; 
What to them is the striving and lusting 

Of the men whose blood runs wholesome and thin? 
The daily battles of splendid winning. 

Or gallant losing in good and in sin? 



All day they loll on the sleek green benches. 

Furtive and saddened, The Dreaming Men; 
And the happy toilers go tramping by. 

And when day is done, tramp home again; 
Do they dream of triumphant banners. 

Or sullen retreat as the sun sank low? 
What puny links of iron circumstance 

Have wrought in their wills this torpor of woe? 



Somewhere in the world did they win, these Men? - 

Sometime were they fearless and,straight and tall? 
Did they challenge Fate with jest and laughter 

To a plain man's stand-up fight, neck and all? 
Sometime or other they believed in Hope, 

And the night was rest, and bread was sweet, 
In the lost, dear days they see across 

The din and the blur of the city street. 



Oh you Dreaming Men in the summer sun. 

With the city's vast passion around you, 
What sluggard demon of failure and calm 

Has fettered and sodden and bound you? 
God knows the city is cruel enough, 

And hard the labor and bitter the bread, 
But as you dream there, in the amber light. 

What difference between you and the dead? 



Wherein do you hold the dreams of the dead 

Less worthy than yours in the summer sun? 
Not in regret or in hopeless quiescence 

Are the daily fights in the city won! 
God knows the struggle is hand to hand. 

With little to get and many to feed. 
But leave the dreaming to Those Who Slumber; 

Do you stand up to a man's part. The Deed. 



90 



LOVE'S ROSES 

A sword in my heart is my love for you. 

Buried to the jeweled hilt; 
I gather the tiny red roses 

That trickle, the roses spilt 
From the edge of the cruel turning. 

And send them to you, Dear Heart. 

But when I lie dead, my sword at my side, 

All wet to the jeweled hilt. 
Then bring me the tiny red roses 

I gathered, the roses spilt 
From the edge of the cruel turning — 

Bring them home to my breast, Dear Heart. 



91 



TO INSURGENT NUIVIBER ONE 



"When Murdock came to Congress, he had 
only friends: now he has a magnificent row of 
influential enemies." 

— The Washington Times. 



You Rebel You, with your Will of Steel, 
And your big Kansas Heart true blue, 

With all of my strength in the Clasp, old friend, 
"Vic" Murdock, my hand to You! 

For years You've bucked The Grand Old Guard, 

In the Slough of Custom stuck fast; 
You've littered the House with the Dripping Shreds 

Of The Creed of Party Caste. 

•He's from Kansas!" loud The Old Guard laughed; 

Behold, they quake in A Row; 
They're your "Influential Enemies" now — 

Egad, 'tis A Pretty Show!* 

It isn't a New Row you have On Tap; 

Your Preachment's hoar with age; 
Its Progress is dabbled with Dews of Blood 

On History's every Page; — 

Man's living Wrong to his fellow men — 

Ah, how the Poets have wept it! 
And through the Sewers of Graft and of Greed 

How the Demagogues have swept it! 



♦Written in February, 1910. 



n 



So breast to breast with the Grim Old Fight, 

You've knotted your Kansas fist; 
They'll set 'em up in The Other Alley 

Before your Play's over, I wist! 

The People's sort of a Captain you are. 

Kicker and Bulldog, too; 
You Insurge with the Chest well forward. 

And they're Swarming back of You! 

With the Great Lamp Lighters of Story, 
You'll stand bold in The Main Text; 

For when in the Torch the Flame guttered low. 
Freedom turned sharp to Murdock: "Next!" 

You Rebel You, with your Western Will 

Strained taut to dare and to do; 
With the Richest Pearl in the Wine, old friend, 

Victor Murdock, here's to You! 



SANCTIFIED 

I've always thought it a stupid house, 

A house of no character, no style; 
Dingy and narrow and oldish and meek — 

A house distinctly hardly worth while; 
I passed it four times a day for ten months, 

And I never saw it exhibit life; 
No curtains raised ever, no open doors. 

No noisy bustle and laugh and strife. 

But last week, one day, there was a flutter 

Around the low, closed door. At the side, 
Nailed to the brick, a length of rusty crape 

Spread, and fell, and hung, and floated wide; 
So the house that had never known life 

Knew Death, — Death, the Magnificent Guest, 
Had knocked and walked in at that dingy door, 

Starting the stupid house from its rest. 

To think that great Death, the Magnificent, 

Should honor that house so dingy and old; 
Death, who can enter rich palaces; 

Death the Triumphant, the Noble, the Bold; 
The King of Kings, whom Emperors fear, 

To stop at that house in a humble street — 
He who owns all thoroughfares, all earth's ways; 

Was it becoming of Death — was it meet? 



94 



But now when I pass that stupid red house, 
I no longer smile. In my midmost heart 
I hold it in awe for the Guest it knew; 

Forever the shabby house stands apart 
From its fellows, so sightly and trim; 
Forever it's sanctified, and I say; 
"There must have been something distinctly worth 
while, 
For Death, in His journey, stopped here a day." 



95 



THE SLOW AGE 

Sometimes I don't care a rap 
'Bout this Age we have on tap; 
I jes' set 'round and wisht I could see 
Some of the things that uster be! 

Take David, for instance, when he danced 

Before the Lord, — bobbed, leaped, and pranced; 

I wonder his drapery didn't fall oflF, 

It looks so loose. This isn't scoff; 

I truly do. It must have been a great lark 

For David. I should like to have seen him then! 

And x\braham, that rare farmer-magnate, 

His expression must have been great 

When told they were angels that boarded with him, — 

Ileal angels, from Heaven's best swim! 

I can imagine how his eyes popped. 

And his memory, alert and scared, dropped 

From item to item of all he'd done — 

I should like to have seen him then! 

Then, that is interestin' readin' 

About J. Csesar, and his leadin' 

'Cross that noble stream, the Rubicon, 

Wavin' his sword, and carryin' on! 

The water was not so deep as he thought. 

And the wadin' not so hard as it ought; 

As a stage play it fell pretty flat — 

But My, think of seein' him then! 

And that lame King who killed his relations. 

And cared not for boodle, love, nor rations; — 

Richard the Third, when he yelled for that boss. 

And stamped and raged, his sword a dead loss — 

Gee Whizz, I wisht I had seen him then! 



And Tudor Bess, when she slapped Bacon's ears, — 

Him, with his dignity, pride, brains, and years — 

I should like to have seen Shakespeare then! 

And great Columbus's sly leer of delight 

When his new egg trick succeeded all right; 

And Oh my goodness, I wisht I had been 

Behind the door when they led Luther in. 

That time when the Diet was Worms! 

And my nerves all get the fidgets and squir ms 

When I read 'bout the Smithfield fires, — 

I should like to have been far off then! 

And when those Big Wigs, quill in hand. 

Were signing The Dec, "That Patriot Band," 

The flies stung their legs through their silk stockings- 

Oh, wouldn't you like to 'a heard 'em then! 

Sometimes I don't care a rap 
*Bout this Age we have on tap; 
I jes' set 'round and wisht I could see 
Some of the things that uster be! 
Shoot this Automobubble Age — 
Wisht I lived in "History's Page!" 



97 



AS MAN TO MAN 

I would, Dear Heart, that drums ruffled 

Across a roused people's hate; 
I would that banners in the sun 

Streamed crimson from the city's gate; 
That far, far out the bhthe lines swung, 

The bugles trilled, the helmets shone. 
And I, in a dismantled hfe. 

For soldier-lover made my moan. 



For Death, it is a vivid thing 

When ranked men breast it with shout; 
But in a faint and whispering room. 

Where checked griefs tiptoe about; — 
Where on the wall Time's unseen clock 

Ticks waning eternities through — 
I can not think that Death intends 

Such ghastly waste for you — not Youl 

Ah Heart, if I could only know — 

Be once assured that Death will meet 
You fair and fain, as man to man. 

On soldier-ground, where brave drums beat! 
That in some shadeless mid-day shine. 

When your mounting blood urges high. 
With eyes dilate and lance out-sped. 

Knightly Death will come tilting by! 



ONE DIFFERENCE 



*'The man's a fool!" the woman said. 

Shrugged light, and turned to the play; 
And a born fool he may have been, 
But the fool's heart broke one day. 

How could he know that her beauty 

Was a law unto itself? — 
That in her bright world all manhood 

Ranked second, — that first came pelf? 



He dreamed a world where God was love; 

She, a world where God was gold; 
Silent, he hid his broken gauds ; 

But the woman laughed — and told! 



YET STANDS HE DUMB 



They are toiling from crimson to crimson 

In the miUion byways of earth; 
They are dreaming from crimson to crimson 

Of the morrow's struggle and dearth; 
For harder and harder comes daily food, 

And Dread is a famished guest; 
He creeps to your bedside, and sits the night, 

And his gaunt eyes harvest your rest. 



In the King-scarred lands, where barons of old 

Seem still to watch over the yield. 
Women yoked with lumbering oxen drag 

Plows of iron o'er the wheaten field; 
Women with no semblance of womanhood. 

Coarsened, meekened and labor-pent, 
Plod the patient rows with unclaiming pain 

Till the husband driver be spent — 
Till darkness drive driver and driven home. 

And the yoked one plays the wife 
Until the raw dawn, with a mock of joy. 

Hales her forth to the beast field-life: — 
Up three flights of whispering stairs, where nightly 

Gray rats scurry with squeak and scream. 
Where floating cobwebs beckon, and dayhght 

Is a mist of smoke and stench and steam, 
Women who know not that pleasures exist. 

Dim creatures of durance and care. 
Stitch endlessly, endless, endlessly, 

A modicum of life to share: — 



100 



And in alleys below, where the blinking bulbs glow, 

("Wheat's up today," say the men on 'Change), 
Their sister toilers, a thousand thousand, 

With haggard hope deploy Sin's range; 
Their sloven scarlet is marged with the mud 

Of a world that detests their trade. 
But a woman must eat, nor does Hunger ask 

That the meal be honor-arrayed. 
To toil for naked bread, to that ghast end 

Nine- tenths of the human seem born. 
And yet, in His wisdom, God one time set 

Poppies in the green of the corn. 

For bread is bread the wide world over. 
And springs from earth with joyous yield, 

Yet drearily the gleaners scan, 

In Mammon's wake, the shaven field. 

II. Far below the shimmering water line, 

In the hells of the monster ships. 
Where the reeling heat throbs at fever pulse. 

And curses ring, and dank sweat drips. 
Men seared to brutehood attend the red cones — 

Those mouths of implacable lust. 
That constant beat back, with torturous breath, 

The zigzag and flying coal thrust; 
Slice and feed, then a gulp of stinging air 

That 'geals the sweat to sudden ice; 
Then — a long, mad swig of the white wet flame 

That earns a brute a man's full price: — 
Far below the beautiful breast of earth, 

The breast nurtured by the sunlight. 
In the buried lodes of the traitor mines, 

In a starless, unlifting night. 



101 



Where always a lurking and collied Death 

'Bides a telling time of spring out. 
Grimed men labor sunless years upon years 

For bread with cypress wreathed about : — 
And in the glamour of the town's rasping clamor, 

("Wheat's low today," say the men on 'Change), 
Their idle brothers, ten hopeless thousand. 

With desperate venture, enskirt Crime's range; 
Their slattern demin is marged with the soil 

Of Law that avenges its trade. 
But a man can not starve, nor does Want contract 

That the loaf be honor-arrayed. 
To toil for naked bread, to that ghast end 

Nine- tenths of the human seem born; 
And yet, in His wisdom, God one time set 

Poppies in the green of the corn. 

For bread is bread the wide world over, 
And man's the right to earn and eat; 

Yet stands he dumb while Mammon tramps, 
With trackless waste, the bearded wheat. 

in. In the noble halls of exalt beauty, 

The gleaming halls of marble girth. 
They are foregathered, the lawmakers. 

The remakers of the earth; 
In Forum and Senate and Commons House, 

'Neath all the flags, in all the lands, 
Wearing the purple and power enraised 

By the people's anointing hands; — 
From the world-zone of East to East again. 

The myriad paths human-trod. 
They are gathered, the men who can make for man 

Laws that build widening rounds toward God : 



102 



And across the wasting work-fields of life. 

Meager fields where the sweat drops rain. 
The toilers look out from their slow, sad eyes. 

Eyes profound with their fathers' pain — 
Stare solemnly with that ancient amaze. 

That hoar surprise, voiceless and bleak. 
That the ermined men do not face God firm — ■ 

Do not rise, once for all, and speak! — 
And on benches wool-soft, with the eagles aloft, 

("Steady now with wheat," say the men on 'Change), 
The Kings and the statesmen weave ropes of sand — 

Laws wild the mark, so foreign-strange! 
Their splendent purple is marged with the stain 

Of power besmirched in world-trade, 
But a man must "live," nor does Wealth stipulate 

That the ease be honor-arrayed. 
To toil for naked bread, to that ghast end 

Nine-tenths of the human seem born. 
And yet, in His wisdom, God one time set 

Poppies in the green of the corn. 

For bread is bread the wide world over. 
And sweet what time God grew it first, 

But bitter it grows with the tilling 
Of Mammon, that Planter accurst. 



ENVOY 

Oh it isn't the primal curse God spoke, 

And it isn't the toil, though the toil be sore; 

It's the Modern Curse, that Power games high 
With the sacred Rules of the Threshing Floor. 



103 



A BLUE BIRD 

Birds and buds, leaves and flowers. 
Blue sky, light clouds and showers; 
A dash of chill, a streak of sun — 
That's April! 
Children shouting at their play. 
Calling others 'cross the way; 

People planting seeds and sHps — - 
In April! 

Apple blossoms falling, falling, 
Robin Redbreast calling, calHng 
From secret coverts of swaying green 
In April! 
Old, old, old folks venturing out, 

Sniffing the warmth, half in doubt — 
Telling how it snowed last year 
In April! 

The earth's dear bosom, brown and bare. 
Nursing violets frail and fair — 
Happy blue eyes in the grass 
Of April! 
Winds that waft faint perfumes down, 
Tossing now in fun, now frown, — 
Laughing like a winsome girl. — 
That's April! 

I do not know of anything 

So Hke a blue bird on the wing 
As April! 



104 



THE WEARING OF THE GREEN 



It's a melancholy music wagon. 

Creaky and dingy and worn. 
Dragged by a big horse who years ago lost 

The reason why he was born; 
He does not care for music, I know 

By the way he lowers his eyes. 
And gives his attention to other things — 

The cars, the boys, or the flies; 
He looks askance while his master cranks up 

The funny little machine, 
And even pretends that he does not care 

For "The Wearing of the Green." 



It must be pretense. I just can not think 

Any horse's heart so hard — 
So bittered by Fortune's outlandish flings — 

By Fate's iron mold so marred 
As not to be moved by the pain that lies 

In that old, old Irish song — 
By the infinite woe that throbs and breaks 

In the soul of that Irish song; 
But he likes to play that he does not care, 

And he changes feet between 
The refrain and the verse, and pretends to doze 

When it's "Wearing of the Green." 

But I — I stand very still, nor pretend 

The song is nothing to me — 
Hold firm while the vagrant griefs of my life 

Dawn dim, as far lights at sea; 
105 



And as plagent waves from the vasty deep 

Wash ever the idle shore. 
Homesickness swells for the sorrows of old 

The heart can harbor no more; 
Why, my own, own eyes could weep tears enough 

To purge the wicked world clean. 
When I listen to that heart-broken wail, 
I "The Wearing of the Green." 

I've forgotten what they were all hanged for. 

And what the sad Green meant then, 
But my heart it goes aching and breaking 

For those dying women and men; 
And all the martyrs of all of the world 

Stare out from their white, white faces. 
And the wasted blood seems to seep and curd 

In the blanched and fagot places . 
It's the very saddest possible world, — 

The saddest world ever seen. 
When the music wagon grinds out that woe, 
"The Wearing of the Green." 



106 



THE WOMAN FATE 



She stood at the gateway, her eager eyes 

Intent on the dusty road; 
Wishfully, she studied each passing face, 

Wishfully, each wayfarer's load; 
*Now what are you waiting?" the people cried. 

As they saw her standing by; 
T am waiting for Life," the girl said, soft, 
"Waiting for Life to come by." 

At length, one day. Life came down the long road, 

And smiled on the eager child; 
With welcoming blushes she followed him 

Through mead and weald and wild; 
She drank alien wines from a crystal cup. 

And roses lay on her breast; 
She sought for Love, and she sought for Hope, 

And last she sought for Rest. 



She stood at the gateway, her weary eyes 

Intent on the dusty road; 
Wishfully, she scanned each passing face. 
Wishfully, each wayfarer's load; 
"Now what are you waiting?" the people cried. 

As they saw her standing by; 
*T am waiting for Death," said the woman, soft, 
"Waiting for Death to come by." 



107 



THE PEACE CGJNIMISSIONER 



"It has been predicted that Colonel 
Roosevelt will be made head of the Peace 
Commission." 

— Associated Press Dispatch, 



He has sent his herald ships of war 
From ocean waste to ocean door; 
Builded for battle and bloodshed; — 
Builded for hatred and strife; 
With sword and turret and cannon 
Leveled the meanings of Life; — 
Burnished anew the gleaming lines 
Where useless dying brightest shines, — 
Where ripened manhood close is bound 
In sheaves with Glory tied around! 
In wanton power he has slain 
The happy wild things of the plain, — 
The browsing denizens of dale. 
And forest tarn and violet vale — 
The creatures God doles careful share 
Of good green earth, and light and air; 
He has listened brute blood seep through 
The silence of the lonely sands 
Where Karnack's shattered grandeur stands, 
And Gizeh broods her stricken hands! — 
Regnant power — and what's the end? 
The beasts' Destroyer, War's truest Friend, 
Preaching a Peace misnamed Red Death, 
A dripping thing of straited breath! 



108 



Is this the man to conserve Peace 

In a world where sweat is gold? 

Where children labor, and woman-flesh 

Is a traflSc Satan-old? 

Can any dove from the honest sky 

Settle on this man's head? 

Where the olive branch that will not shrink 

From hands so stout with red? 

From prairies dim where perfumes blow 

In sapphire fullness mild and low; — 

From ancient sands where Pharaohs held 

The knotted lash o'er slaves of eld; — 

From jungle, stream and placid plain 

The loosened souls of creatures slain 

Protest — protest that this man be 

Apostle of dear Liberty; 

Protest that Peace be misnamed Death, 

A dripping thing of straited breath. 



109 



THOUGH SOLEMNER I WALK 

Over? Yes, but thank God it was, — 
The fever, the waste, the gray; 

Thank God, though solemner I walk 
Even in May ... in May! 



110 



THE LATEST MENACE 

'Washington is suffering from a dearth of dancing men." 

— The Daily Eagle. 

Quivering down the living wires, 

'Mid floods and earthquakes, famines and fires, — 

Disasters that follow, one upon one, 

A world-vaudeville, from sun to sun. 

Comes the most pathetic word today; — 

Word that will cause the quick tears to flow 

As about the streets the people go; — 

Word that will burn like letters of Fate 

The selfish lines that ridge state from state: — 
This is the sad thing the wires say. 
This is the drear word that comes today : 

"Washington is suffering from a dearth — 
A dearth of dancing men!" 



Ah, think of it, dream of it, all of you 

Who barter and pleasure the bright days through; 

I charge you, put aside thoughts of self. 

Sky-scaling castles of power and pelf. 

And think of this sorrow within our gates; 

Let pass the people's pitiful plight, — 

Butter and eggs in their gilt-edged flight; 

Let pass the slavery that clothes like lead 

The laboring man from heel to head; 

What are these things to the anguish that waits, 
The manifold anguish within our gates: 

"Washington is suffering from a dearth-^ 
A dearth of dancing men!" 



Ill 



And yet there be men enough in the world 
To keep the guns primed, the flags unfurled; 
Men to drive the ships from shore to shore, 
Men to winnow bread on the threshing floor, — 

There be men enough in the world, God wot! 
But now, 'neath the dome where the Goddess stands, 
A nation's Faith firm in her tranquil hands. 
There's a dearth of men to circle about. 
Like water bugs, in and out, in and out: 
Now in our plentitude all forgot. 
Our men who rule the world, God wot : 

"Washington is suffering from a dearth — 
A dearth of dancing men!" 

EN\^OY 

Paris can sop up her wasted river, 

Her poor creep back to their hovels again, 

But who can reckon the toll of sorrow 
That trails a famine of "dancing men?" 



112 



THE CLUTCH OF CIRCUMSTANCE 

From my window I see the two men pass 

On the spacious street where the elm trees are, 
A tall, oldish man with shoulders rounded. 

And a tall, straight man in a motor car; 
Silent the meeting, the parting, the passing; 

The man on the walk does not lift his head. 
And the man in the motor car only sees 

The long rippling road to be satin-sped. 

The solemn-faced man with the rounded back 

Inherited Poverty's pending care — 
The wary, self-contained power to toil 

Steadfast in the byways, bitter and spare; 
The tall, alert man in the motor car 

Inherited fortune and ease and name — 
The facile, debonair courage to spend 

The forces of manhood Playing the Game. 

Did the bowed man wander from the white ways 

God set for him in some life long ago.'^ 
Does the tall, straight men enjoy ease because 

He sometime toiled with gaunt sweat and woe.? 
How does the great world judge it, I wonder, 

That the straight man reaps, without thought or care, 
And the bowed man toils, hour on hour. 

Steadfast in the byways, bitter and spare .^^ 

And what does the bowed man think, I wonder? 

And what the straight man in the motor car.?* 
Do they ever dream as they pass, these two. 

Of the cobweb mesh that holds them so far. 



113 



Each from each forever, as world from world 
In the moveless blue, locked precise in place? 

Creatures who demand immortalitj'^ 
Enmeshed in a tangle of cobweb lace! 

A pitiful tangle of petty deeds, 

Intangible, pale — a wavering mist. 
Like the thin, sheer tracery that clings along 

The brow of a mountain the sun has kissed. 
Deed and deed to deed till the iron is firm, 

And the soul cries aloud from prison walls. 
And the blood-red sun sets slow in the west. 

And over the prison the stark night falls. 

From my window I watch the two men pass, 

And something of that filmly lace I see 
Gathered pale around each, as I have felt 

Its dehcate meshes enstrangling me : 
Silent the meeting, the parting, the passing; 

The man on the walk does not lift his head, 
And the man in the motor car only sees 

The long rippling road to be satin-sped. 



114 



"SILENCE, LONELINESS, DARKNESS" 

One word tonight — one word, my love, my love! 

Do you not see how I suffer — 
See with that wonderful heart of yours. 
Absolute of time and space, the lures 

That blur other men's sheer seeing? 
Out of the silence we have sworn to, and keep; 
Out of the torture that grinds, grinds deep 
Like a nail in the flesh, speak to me — speak! 
Across this darkness that stabs like light 

On eyes all suddenly unsealed — 

Sick eyes, all suddenly Christ-healed, 
Look at me once, my love, my love! 

If this embracing, impalpable woe 

Be Death's august approach, why, see, I go 

Across the happy fields with him, as children 

Clasp little hands in love, and run 

Among the daisies, in the sun. 
I can die. But who would whisper you. Dear, 
That my whole thought. Death waiting near. 

Was you, you only, you — 
You against everything I have thought 
And suffered and hoped and visioned and wrought? 
If I knew well that this comfort secure 
Would reach you, arrow-direct and pure, — 
(I would not have you the loser by this. 
My passion's last, supremest bliss), — 
. I'd beckon Death quickly from where he stands. 

Encompassed by delicate, foreign things, — 
Strange gifts garnered from milliard star lands, 
I'd summon Death gaily, and go 
Across the happy fields with him, as children 

Clasp little hands in love, and run 
115 Among the daisies, in the sun. 



PERHAPS IN OTHER STARS 



Perhaps in other stars, O Love 

I pass with sheathed eyes. 
Our hands may clasp, our Hps may touch, 

Without this drear disguise; 
I feel that somewhere reigns a God 

Who holds within His heart 
The burden of the heavy years 

We two have walked apart. 



Lift up your courage, O my Love 

I pass with sheathed eyes; 
Look, in yon ruby, low-hung star, 

Where Love brooks no disguise. 
Two lovers walking hand in hand 

Down summer-singing ways — 
A ruby land, God-ever-watched 

Through cloudless summer days! 



116 



"AYE, AYE, SIR!" 



"... It is the difference between the moldering 
past and the quickening future. We have no doubt 
how the people will respond." 

— The Times. 



You have endured much, and nobly endured. 

Flag of my country, crimsoned and starred; 
Through ways of shame men have carried you bold 
Ways where Wrong held revel, and Right was cold, 
A trampled thing in a field of mire. 
Left to slow death by a waning fire; 
Beneath your fair folds, ranged in civic pride, 
Men have trafficked in honor, cheated and lied — 
Crawled on their bellies to sting the manhood 
Of men who would build for the common good; 
Above their frail slime your glory has bent. 
Unsullied, beseeching, meek, impotent — 
Ah, what you have borne, crucified on the wall 
Of Council and Senate, of Chamber and Hall, 
Flag of my country, crimsoned and starred! 

You have endured much, and nobly endured. 
Flag of my country, crimsoned and starred; 
Never Mammon's road so darkened with shame, 
But shone, overhead, some patriot flame — 
One beautiful star in an unrif t sky 
For God to relight Freedom's torches by! 
Beneath your soft folds, ranged in silken grace. 
Men have hounded crime to its braggart face — 



117 



Fought with hopeless courage the sickening fight 
'Gainst the bastioned aUies of greed and might; 
Above their brave failure your glory has bent, 
Unsullied, beseeching, meek, impotent — 
Ah, what you have borne, crucified on the wall 
Of Council and Senate, of Chamber and Hall, 
Flag of my country, crimsoned and starred! 

You have endured much, and nobly endured. 
Flag of my country, crimsoned and starred; 
Now, rouse you to battle. Come down from the wall 
Of Council and Senate, of Chamber and Hall; 
With every high potence life-wrung from the sod. 
Every high passion gift-handed from God, 
Unfurl your humanhood, — prove yourself true 
To the haggard eyes turned constant to you! 
Lead us with trumpets and shouting and song 
To the far- trenched ramparts the foemen throng; 
Though our dead be as leaves on autumn ground. 
And we mount, inch by inch, o'er the ghastly mound. 
Lead us now. The People, to that glad war 
That shall laurel your patience forevermore. 
Flag of my country, crimsoned and starred! 



118 



A DISMISSAL 

It is not that your passion leaped its bounds. 

And degraded the vows you vowed; 
I have wide charity for the strong man 

Whose maddened passions swell and crowd 
Him off his feet, if he spring up soul-clean; 

Passion is not of the mire 
Unless the spirit grovel there, content, 

Nor seeks nor wills a purging fire 
Understand me. If it not for your "sin" 

I now deny your love and you ; 
*Sin" is a fragment; I leave it to One 

Who gets, somehow, a total view; 
But you lied about it — words mild and cold, 

Fitted each to each in a plan; 
Now — go! I can not breathe in the presence 

Of a lover .less than a man. 



119 



SOFTLY, PAST THIS CLOSED ROOM 

Softly, please, past this closed room, 

For there the King lies dead; 

About the palace here they say 

He rests upon a purple bed; 

And heart's-ease and wee mignonette 

Carpet the marble floor. 

And rue, they say, and violets. 

And oh, so many flowers more' 

I have not entered; I could not have 

The violets, low-nestling on his breast. 

Weep out of sympathy with me. 

The woman that he loved the best; 

I would not have the faintest sigh 

Whisper the King that it was I 

Whose tears dropped through the slow silence; 

Why, only think, if he should hear. 

And grieve to hear — my King, my King . . . my King! 

I have not entered; no, not once, have I; 

And in the palace here they cry; 

'She grieve for the King? Not she, indeed!" 

But some day I shall enter there, — 

Open lightly that oaken door. 

Step gently over the tender floor. 

And down by the side of the King I shall lie — 

Creep under the ermine that covers his breast, 

His Queen, come to share his long Night's rest. 



120 



Step softly yet; the corridor is long 

But 'way down there — see. 

Where the sunbeams throng 

A sudden window, we can talk out loud there. 

Not here . . . not here, for in that room 

The King lies dead. 

And about the palace here they say 

He rests upon a purple bed. 



121 



THE WORLD BUILDERS 

I. They have builded, they have builded, 

Since Man Erect first faced the Light, 
BHnking, paUid, timid, broken. 

From the weight of the Nether Night; 
They have builded a God in heaven, 

They have builded a God in hell. 
And for which God the shrieking died 

The Druid woods could never tell; — 
They have builded prayers and Scriptures, 

Altars of fagots and fire. 
Faith and creeds and philosophies, 

Dead children of living Desire! — 
They have builded, builded, builded. 

With Scripture and Battle and Trade, 
And now, in sadness and madness. 

We cope with the things they have made. 

(And what have the women been doing 
The heart-breaking ages long? 

Cleaning the dirt from the doorstep. 
With Home for a scrubbing song.) 

n. They have builded, they have builded. 

Nation, government and state, — 
Laid the boundaries smooth in brotherhood. 

Then wiped them out swift in hate! 
They have builded their courts of Justice, 

And flanked them with gibbets high, 
And prisons and towers of torture 

Rank on rank 'neath the equal sky. 



122 



They have builded phalanx and cannon, — 

Shot each other in serried rows — 
In a thousand meadows the daisies 

Have marveled at their death- throes; — 
They have builded, builded, builded, 

With Scripture and Battle and Trade. 
And now, in sadness and madness. 

We cope with the things they have made 

(And what have the women been doing 
The heart-breaking ages long? 

Laughing light into false kings' eyes. 
With Ease for a feasting song.) 

III. They have builded, they have builded. 

Market places rich and fair. 
And monster servants of commerce 

To hasten world-products there; 
They have builded of gold for pleasure. 

They have builded of gold for gain, — 
Girded fast around earth's greenery 

A glittering fetter of pain! 
They have builded dike and trestle. 

Spanned the blue from shore to shore; 
They have threaded the air with wires. 

They have ribboned the ocean's floor; — 
They have builded, builded, builded. 

With Scripture and Battle and Trade, 
And now, in sadness and madness. 

We cope with the things they have made. 

(And what have the women been doing 

The heart-breaking ages long? 
Bearing the brunt of their lovers' lies, 
123 With Shame for a cradle song.) 



rV. They have builded, they have builded, 

Beauty in color and line; 
Marbled their valor and prowess, 

Sung of their loves and their wine; — 
They have builded houses for drama 

They have builded houses for lust. 
And ever therein the woman name 

Is dragged through the brilliant dust; — 
They have builded the things that are, — 

Possessed the fulness of earth. 
Her honors and meanings and powers. 

Her hope, her strength and her mirth; — 
They have builded, builded, builded. 

With Scripture and Battle and Trade, 
And now, in sadness and madness. 

We cope with the things they have made. 

(And what have the women been doing 
The heart-breaking ages long? 

Bearing the children of all the world, 
With Love for an even song.) 



ENVOY 

Alone you have builded a world for self. 
You Men, as if the half were the human; 

Did you ever dream what the world might be, 
If vou builded, brain to brain, with woman .^ 



124 



AT THE CONCERT 

I forgot the glare and the glitter. 
The man at my side and the time; 

And again we two were swaying, 
Swaying to that old rhyme. 

We two who loved each other, 

Alone in the rose-lit space; 
Or, if there were other dancers. 

For me there was only your face. 

The roses' beauty, the music's throb, 
Your eyes with their light above me. 

Waltzing in time to that old love rhyme. 
And you, my world, to love me! 

I forgot the glare and the glitter, 
The man at my side and the time; 

And again we two were swaying. 
Swaying to that old rhyme. 



125 



THE OLD THEOLOGY" 



"And . . . the God that you took from a 
printed book be with you, Tomlinson!" 

— Kipling. 



He babbled of Sin and of Judgment, 

Of the Virgin-born, of the Broken Tomb; 
Through the open windows, the roses' breath 

Stole tenderly into the vaulted room; 
With a Bible clasped in his slender hand, 

In a gentle voice he babbled of Hell, — 
Those cruel fires that ceaselessly burn 

With a fierceness and heat no words can tell. 

To the fanning, complacent women, 

All safely, softly, the empty words came; 
The choir yawned deep, and in a far side pew 

Some bored little girls played a hat-pin game; 
The deacons were easy, — their stunt was done, 

The women fanned calmly, the old men slept. 
And the Man with the Bible babbled of God, 

The wrath and the hate and the Hell He kept. 

Outside the mist light of a crescent moon 

Touched the giant elms with no sense of fear. 
And beyond circled the unasking stars, 

Pendent in silence, sphere upon sphere; 
The daisies slept where the violets died. 

Nor saw tiny ghosts when the shadows fell; 
Outside, the creatures, the flowers, the stars. 

Breathed unregardant of Heaven and Hell. 



126 



Oh happy birds in the. glad treetops! ^ 

Oh motes that dance in the summer sun! 
Oh gay httle violets that fall asleep 

Thinking Death only a day that is done! 
Oh foolish riddle of Sin and Judgment! 

Oh monstrous fiction of Heaven and Hell! 
Oh heart, heart, heart, you alone are attuned 

To the woeful note of the funeral bell! 

Oh heart, heart, heart, always you crouch and kneel; 

Ever you grovel before the Mask 
You have builded to hide Death's awful face; 

Ever you promise and truckle and ask — 
Plead like a beggar and do sacrifice! 

The flowers, the brutes, the planets, can die; 
The human mixes an opiate, God, 

The essential coward beneath the sky! — 

Ever you cheat yourself, — ever you claim 

You builded God out of your own divine — 
Builded Him secure because once a part 

Of His very Self — once a God, in fine! 
Oh heart, heart, how can you cheat yourself so? 

When you saw the clay return to the clod. 
In the agony of that bitter cold 

You builded of fear, and the house was — God! 

He sprang, A Defense, full-grown, from your fright; 

With ermine and incense you throned Him fair. 
Revealed Him in Scripture and Faith and Creed, 

Ringed Him with praises and prizes and prayer; 
He has spoken in thunder from Sinai, 

He has sobbed alone in Gethsemane, 
Yet ever green ridges ripple the ground 
127 In spite of your wistful imagery. 



Oh heart, heart, heart, what has it all accrued? 

Only the travail of inhibition, 
Bitterness, battle, and that ghast train 

Of specters and shadows and masks — Tradition. 
To do good because Hell burns always bright. 

With supphant hands outstretched lest you miss 
God-reward for denying the human — 

Oh heart, heart, that fear should bring you to this! 

Oh heart, you may break with the pain of God 

When the stars glow soft in the summer sky. 
But never the God of a printed book 

Can command our uses, my soul and I; 
We leave God free in the beautiful dark. 

Nor pen Him in mosque or heaven or creed, 
An exquisite, poignant impulse that leaps 

To meet, for an instant, a human need. 

Behind the rich curtain the choir yawned deep; 

The deacons nodded remotely, and schemed 
The next week's business ; the women fanned slow. 

The little girls giggled, the old men dreamed. 
And the Preacher, clasping the Bible close. 

Babbled of Sin in a voice silken-bland — 
Descanted pleasantly on the fires 

That ceaselessly burn in the Nether Land. 



128 



"CLEAN, COLD CASH" 

She has retired on two millions 

To private life the rest of her days. 
This actress, known on two continents 
For the light, salacious insolence 
Of her pretty, wicked ways. 

Her name, a byword when midnight 

Burns white down the hell of Broadway; 
Her body, a rosy beauty-den 
Li the memory of ten thousand men — 
A supple poison they call "A Play." 



She has earned two millions in ten years, 
Marketing wares The Spenders prefer; 
**A successful woman," we're gravely told, 
"She harvest her own shining sheaves of gold." 
Clean, naked money, as it were. 



129 



AS WE HURTLED TO DEATH 

Last night in my sleep I saw painted plain, 

Against a deep midnight sky, 
Two lovers ride laughing to headlong death, — 

You, my lover denied and I; 
White was the steed, and his beautiful neck 

Arch for a God o'er tread , 
And nobly his taut ears questioned the blue 

For a thousand leagues ahead; 
So valiant and brave and swift he clove 

The watchful and ancient sky. 
The idle suns hounded with mock and jeer. 

And the comets ramped in cry! 

You held me fast, and with laughter and jest 

Together we swayed and clung; 
Our steed was hoofed with fire, and fire 

Were the planets overswung; 
The glorious winds from between the worlds 

Backed frightened against the clouds, 
And the wide-eyed, shuddering httle stars 

Knotted close in gossip growds; 
For never were seen in the spaces of blue 

Such lovers as you and I, 
As we hurtled to death on a champing steed. 

With the comets in full cry! 

They were jealous, the poor little old maid stars. 

And the lone suns, huge and gold. 
But we laughed, and waved spare kisses across 

The flying leagues of the wold! 



130 



The upswirled mass of the white steed's mane 

Made us a covert apart, 
And the thunder echoes that tolled his hoofs 

Fell like music on the heart; 
And ever and ever wild flecks of foam 

Dimmered down the trodden sky. 
As we hurtled to death on a champing steed. 

With the comets in full cry! 

Oh the splendrous globes of cresset fire 

That dawned and flared and faded. 
As we lunged through deep piled on nether deep. 

With cloud-fringes cascaded! 
Oh the kisses we held in that covert white — 

The passion-sorrow unsealed! — 
Our eyes drinking mad their last farewells, 

Till the drunken planets reeled — 
Reeled in the vast as we hurtled to death. 

With the comets in full cry — 
As we hurtled to death down the headlong blue. 

On a white steed, you and I! 



131 



I LIFT MY LOW HEART UP 



Oh God, I lift my low heart up, 

An empty vase enringed with pain. 
And if Thou canst indeed forgive. 

Oh pour in joy again! 
The bitterness has dripped away. 

The salt tears marge in frosted rime; 
Dear God, I lift my low heart up, 

And wait, with love. Thy perfect time. 



122 



STEADFAST AND GRAY 

"... A sober coloring from an eye 
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality." 

—Wordsworth; The Ode. 

I am old with the age of earth-born years; 

I am wise with the wisdom of earth-born tears; 

I sheltered man in the dawn-fresh days 

When he walked in the Orient Garden ways; 

I knitted the shadows for his noon rest; 

I nurtured the violets his love-hours pressed, 

I, the Oak, who am now so old. 
It was I who descried, a thread in the vast. 
The sky-flung Sword that came thundering past 
The affrighted worlds, till it leapt, curse-keen, 
To its God-hewn place the Gates between. 
And barred the Orient Garden ways! 
Alone, alert, I watched the Red Wrath 
Beat through the heavens its quivering path. 
But now I am old and the Sword is cold. 
And the Orient Gates are fallen to mold! 

It was I who offered man refuge first. 
When he stumbled, sin-blinded, broken, accurst. 
In the thorn-rent wilds — I welcomed him 
To my closest shade, dreaming, healing, dim — 
My shade, where his earliest prayers were said. 
Where his mantling pleasures were lightly sped — 
My shade, where his tears unavailing were shed. 
How his sad eyes glowed when he found me the same, 
Unawed by his sin, unafraid of his shame! 
He slept out his heart-break beneath my shade. 
With my velvet seed-cups his first child played; 
At his erring feet I poured my youth, 
133 I, the Oak, who am now so old. 



I looked on man's toil when the stars were new, 
When between the corn rows the sun-flowers grew, 
In the fields of the unremembering moon; 
All my life long I have shared his sorrows. 
His sold Yesterdays, his mortgaged Tomorrows; 
The purest reaches of his spirit I know, 
And the sunken by-ways his passions go; 
Ever between him and storms that lower 
I have fronted my crest, I have garnered my power, 
Flesh of my flesh have I yielded him. 
When beyond the virgin ocean's rim 
His world- winged thoughts have hounded him! 
His home, his comfort, his commerce, his rest — 
I dole them out of my plenteous breast; 
Who serves him as I, who guards him as I, ' 
Stalwart enguards from the compassing sky, 
I, the Oak, who am old, old, old! 

I am old with the age of earth-born years; 
I am wise with the wisdom of earth-born tears; 
Steadfast and gray is the courage I glean 
From the mortal clamor and battle and sheen; 
Cypress twines gently the visions that trail 
Through my short, tired sleep, fitful and frail. 
And o'er darkened waters lost winds seem to wail; 
I stand erect, for I know my worth. 
Breathing in heaven, rooted in earth, — 
Gray — gray and steadfast, I temper my will, 
Patient, thoughtful, acquiescent, still — 
I am the Oak, and my youth is cold. 
And the Orient Gates are fallen to mold! 



134 



ETERNAL IN THE HEAVENS 



Not a columned marble, set in leafy shade, 

Where music moonlight plays, and the nightingale 
Calls through pensive aisles of cedarn dust; — 
Not a vaulted dungeon, where the moss-mold spreads 
Like a latent disease, and the sunbeams fail 
Their prostrate brother gold on the floor; — 
Nor vaulted nor barred is the beautiful house 

That protects my treasures, — no faithful guards scale 
Its towers and walls of amethyst. 



The pendent hour between daylight and dark — 
Primrose and violet and tenderest gray, 
A symphony of enskyed farewell. 
Is my Treasure House, and there I count over 
The King's words lovingly, lovingly, and lay 
Them against my heart to ease the pain; — 
The Treasure House, Memory, eternal 

In the heavens, primrose and tenderest gray, 
Violet and saffron and amethyst. 

So long as my life holds its sentient course. 
Being pure, apart, unique, indesecrate, 

Through worlds on worlds that it yet must know; 
In stars that now sleep in the womb of the sun. 
Wild worlds that now wander in skies isolate, 
So long will my Treasure House endure, 
A Palace not builded with hands, eternal 

In the heavens, — Memory's immortal estate, 
Primrose and saffron and amethyst. 



135 



BITS OF BROKEN DREAMS 

Bits of broken dreams 

Half dreamed as the night pearled to day; 
But it sometimes seems 
That my broken dreams 

Have stolen my waking away! 



136 



HAIL AND FAREWELL 

The meadows bloomed the same — the same 

Men Hved in mirth and sorrow — 
Grieved over broken Yesterday, 

And builded firm To-morrow; 
They joyed in work and food and care — 

The routine of the human; 
They went to war, they dreamed of God, 

They roofed homes for their women; 
They counted stars, and weighed the Hght, 

And reaped in rows the yellow wheat, — 
Walked all earth's troublesome old ways. 

So human dear, so human sweet! 
But there was time beneath the sun 
When in earth's ways I walked not one — 
I was not Here. 

No one has loved life more than I, 

Li sin and good, in mirth and sorrow; 
None wept sincerer tears the night, 

Nor laughed more gay the morrow! 
The kiss of lover, hand of friend. 

The forthright thrust of foeman blade; 
The dusty highway of a noon, 

The brooding walk in midnight glade; 
The body's sheer delight in work. 

The comfort of the evening meal; 
Slow bells that toll across the dusk 

When some worn heart has found its leal; - 
This blessed life beneath the sun 
Has been worth while, I say, for one; 
I've loved it Here. 



137 



For you the carmine in the east 

Will faithful dawn to-morrow. 
And ancient habit guide your day 

Through sin and joy and sorrow; 
For you the little leaves will fringe 

Their wavering shadows down, 
The goldenrod be starlike set 

In dreaming fields of Autumn brown; 
For you the shine of cryptic stars. 

The voice of man, the laugh of woman, 
The odors, sights, and sounds of earth — 

The myriad, precious Human! 
All living things will bask in sun. 
Yet will there be no light for one — 
I'll not be Here. 

I am not weary, but night is come. 

The night of no to-morrow, 
The night that closes, once for all. 

Earth joy and sin and sorrow; 
Secure I lay me down to sleep 

As on a bed of daffodils, 
Knowing for me no morn will touch 

With workday call, the purpling hills; 
Serene I stretch me for the night. 

All decently the white sheets fall — 
Dim voices seem to thread the dark 

Of distant corridor and hall . . . 
To-morrow when you greet the sun 
Give thought to one, give thought to one 
Who is not Here. 



138 



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